Good afternoon, everyone.

This meeting will come to order.

Welcome to the July 28th, 2025 regular meeting of the Land Use and Transportation Committee of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

I'm Supervisor Mirna Melgar, Chair of the Committee, joined by Vice Chair, Supervisor Cheyenne Chen and Member Bilal Mahmud.

The committee clerk today is John Carroll, and I want to thank in particular in particular James Kawana at SFgov TV for supporting us and staffing this meeting.

Mr.

Clerk, do you have any announcements?

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair.

Please ensure that you've silenced your cell phones and other electronic devices you've brought with you into the chamber today.

If you have any documents to be included as part of any of today's files, you can submit them directly to me.

Public comment will be taken on each item on today's agenda when your item of interest comes up and public comment is called.

Please line up to speak along your right hand side of this room.

Alternatively, you may submit public comment and writing in either of the following ways.

First, you may email your comments to me at J-O-H-N period C-A-R-R-O-L-L at SFGOV.org.

Or you may send your written comments via U.S.

Postal Service to our office in City Hall.

The address is one Dr.

Carlton B.

Goodlit Place Room 244, San Francisco, California, 94102.

If you submit public comment in writing, I will forward your comment to the members of this committee and also include your comments as part of the official file on which you are commenting.

And finally, Madam Chair, items acted upon today are expected to appear on the Board of Supervisors Agenda of September 2nd, 2025, unless otherwise stated.

Thank you so much.

Mr.

Clerk, please call item number one.

Agenda item number one is a resolution authorizing the placement of commemorative sidewalk plaques at various locations within and around North Beach as part of the Little Italy honor walk to celebrate prominent prominent figures in the Italian American community.

This item is on our agenda as a potential committee report, and we prepared a place for it on tomorrow's board agenda.

It may be sent for consideration as a committee report July 29th, 2025.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

We are now joined by Michelle Andrews, representing Supervisor Sauter's office, who is sponsoring this legislation.

So welcome, Ms.

Andrews.

Thank you, Chair Malgar.

Good afternoon, committee members.

Michelle Andrews, Legislative Aid for Supervisor Sauter.

Supervisor Sauter is proud to be sponsoring this resolution before you today to authorize the placement of additional commemorative sidewalk plaques across North Beach to build upon the incredible work that the San Francisco Little Italy Honor Walk has done to celebrate some of the amazing Italians that have made history in our great city.

The San Francisco Little Italy Honor Walk is a wonderful community partnership between organizations, including the San Francisco Italian Athletic Club, Consul General of Italy, La Donna d'Italia, Ital SF, Italian Community Services, Museo Italo Americano, and the Italian Heritage Parade.

Last year, the Board of Supervisors authorized the placement of the first round of plaques for this program.

Since then, three plaques have been installed honoring George Mosconi, Mariana Bertola, and AP Giannini.

Supervisor Sauter and I were honored to attend the unveiling of the third one just a few days ago.

Today's resolution is building on that work by proactively identifying a list of blocks in North Beach where plaques could be placed in the future.

Thanks to DPW and the City Attorney's Office for helping us craft the language in this resolution that gives the neighborhood flexibility to place future plaques where they best see fit without having to come back to the Board of Supervisors for individual authorization for each one.

This resolution still requires the San Francisco Little Italy Honor Walk to get approval of their plaque designs from the Arts Commission.

The next round of plaques in the series has already been approved by the Arts Commission.

Again, this resolution does not get rid of the review process for these plaques.

It simply allows for the honor walk to not have to return to the Board of Supervisors for a new piece of legislation every time they are ready to install a new plaque.

And to be clear, the plaques do not cost anything to the city.

They are procured, installed, and maintained by the San Francisco Little Italy Honor Walk Organization.

The San Francisco Little Little Italy Honor Walk is a success story of the Love Our Neighborhoods program.

This is a project that gives locals the opportunity to learn more about our city's history as they walk through their own neighborhood.

And at the same time, it helps attract more visitors to this special corner of the city.

These are all people who end up shopping and dining at our neighborhood small businesses, riding transit around town, and helping to spread the word about one of San Francisco's most historic, vibrant communities.

And to quote an article by National Geographic that came out last month, highlighting North Beach as one of the best Italian neighborhoods in the country.

Quote From the tricolor crosswalks to the new honor walk celebrating local notable historic Italian Americans.

What's clear is San Francisco's Little Italy is experiencing a renaissance.

End quote.

So let's keep this renaissance going.

Supervisor Sauter would like to give a big thank you to all the North Beach and Italian community members who have worked hard for years to get this project off the ground, especially Nick Fagoni, who you will hear from in a minute.

Supervisor Sauter would also like to thank Supervisors Dorsey and Chan for co-sponsoring this resolution.

With that, I'm available to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Andrew.

So I don't have another speaker on my script.

Is there someone else who's gonna make a presentation?

Oh, public comment.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Um I love this.

Thank you so much.

Uh let's, if there's no questions or comments from my colleagues, uh, let's go to public comment, Mr.

Clerk.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Land use and transportation.

We'll now hear public comment related to agenda item number one, a resolution for commemorative plaques commemorating Little Italy honor walk expansion.

If you have public comment for that, please come forward to electorate this time and you may begin.

Thank you very much.

Uh my name is Nick Fagoni, representing the San Francisco Little Italy honor walk, and Michelle said everything so beautifully.

I have very little to add other than a big thank you to Supervisor Melgar uh for last year with the Love Our Neighborhoods program and uh coming uh to this very chamber and ultimately the board.

Uh we realized that uh we were a little too tailored in the way the ordinance was written, and as much as I love coming here, uh I don't want to for every single plaque.

Uh so it would be great to add a few more blocks and make that uh something that we can then just go back to DPW every time uh to get the site specific uh permit.

Uh one little vignette from the other day, uh, and the reason why we're doing this project is not only to drive business to North Beach, not only to uh be an economic stimulus for the neighborhood and beautify uh the neighborhood, but it's to educate and teach uh not only uh locals but visitors about uh the history of uh North Beach and Little Italy.

And we had a beautiful ceremony the other day, uh, and we had numerous children there uh who are able to uh listen to the speeches, listen to the stories, and on every plaque there's a QR code that leads to a website, and so there's more information that they can learn about uh these prominent figures.

So we're excited.

I've got plaques in my office that are ready to get put into the ground, and with your support uh and the full board's support, we uh look forward to continue the success of the Little Italy Honor Walk.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for your comments.

Do we have any further speakers for agenda item number one?

Madam Chair.

Okay, seeing none, uh, public comment on this item is now closed.

Uh so thank you all.

This is great.

Uh I would like to make a motion that we send this item out of committee uh to the full board uh with a positive recommendation as a committee report.

On the motion offered by the chair that the resolution be recommended as a committee report, Vice Chair Chen.

Chen I, Member Markbud, Machmoud I, Chair Melgar.

Aye.

Melgar, I, Madam Chair, there are three ayes.

Thank you.

That motion passes.

Congratulations.

Um, let's go to item number two, please.

Agenda item number two is an ordinance amending the planning code to require applicants to disclose the presence of any author unauthorized dwelling unit and require the planning department to investigate any unauthorized dwelling unit upon submittal of a development application.

Require the planning department to document when a property is subject to a regulatory agreement subjecting any units on the property to the San Francisco residential rent stabilization and arbitration ordinance, and require the planning department to inspect properties prior to recommending approval of any loss of residential unit or unauthorized dwelling unit.

The ordinance also amends the building code to expand the department of building inspections expanded compliance control program to address fraud, bribery, and failure to accurately represent the presence and number of unauthorized dwelling units of properties subject to a permit application, and it makes CEQA findings and affirms findings of consistency with the general plan and the eight priority policies of planning code section 101.1 and findings of public necessity, convenience, and welfare.

Pursuant to planning code section 302.

Like the previous item, this item is also prepared as a potential committee report, and it may be sent to the board for consideration tomorrow, July 29th, 2025.

Thank you.

Um, uh, as a sponsor of the legislation, I'm just gonna say a few words uh before I turn it over to my colleagues.

Um, so I have been working on this late legislation for about a year and a half with uh tenants' rights advocates and anti-displacement folks.

Uh, it was inspired by my experience having served on both the building Inspection commission and the Planning Commission.

And I do see one of my former colleagues on the planning commission in the audience, former Commissioner Koppel, who will uh you know re remember some of these uh instances.

Um there were multiple cases that we saw where um owners hid the presence of uh tenants or unauthorized dwelling units in their permit applications in order to get around eviction protections or having to pay relocation when uh you know unauthorized dwelling units were phased out or demolished.

Um as uh we know uh with the uh impending rezoning of the west side and uh SB 330 uh developers uh will want to add more units to their property through expansion or demolition, and they must replace rent control units and allow tenants a right of return if tenants are in the building.

So it's really important that we have eviction protections for these tenants, and I also because you know our city does count these units as rent controlled units, um, it is a very important part of our stock, and it's an affordable part of our stock.

Uh planning staff uh need to process application quickly.

We now have timelines that they must adhere to.

Uh, in the past, we have uh relied on the word of applicants to be honest.

Uh we don't have the processes that we need, um, and uh there are folks who have been able to get away with uh, you know, not being truthful in their applications.

So uh it often took a discretionary review hearing or a neighbor uh who came forward or tenant advocates um to sort of shed light on uh the uh situation um of you know renovations, you know, evictions through uh um, you know, really renovations that uh were happening.

So uh I want to give a big thanks to my staff, Jennifer Fever, uh, who sat through um several heartbreaking hearings uh with long-term tenants who uh were facing displacement because of renovations, but really were unsure how to halt things when you know it was just a renovation, not an outward uh evictions, uh, but they still led to the removal of their homes and and a loss of a rental unit.

So we will have a presentation by uh Aaron Start from the planning department.

Uh we also have uh Tate Hanna here from DBI if there's any questions about the enforcement procedures.

Um I do have some small amendments which uh the planning department has asked for um line four, line uh I'm sorry, page four, line 14.

I would like to strike the phase out or the zoning administrators designee because it's redundant.

Um, but before I move the amendment, I would like to duplicate the file, Mr.

Clerk, because um there's a couple things that some community members have uh brought up that could be clearer, and we uh are gonna work on that.

Um, so um I uh I see uh Commissioner Chen on the roster.

Do you want to provide comments now?

Okay, and then we'll go to the presentations.

Thank you.

Great, thank you, Chairman.

Um I want to appreciate Supervisor Malga and her staff, Jen Fever, for developing this legislation.

I know that the housing staff in my district, including many unauthorized dueling units, and I want to make sure that we are doing our part as a city to protect these homes where many tenants also reside.

These homes are part of our stock of rent controlled housing, which has been rapidly dueling.

This legislation will give permitting staff tools to protect tenants, and it will help protect a small subset of rent controlled housing units from permanently loose by the determination whether tenants occupy or have occupied it, this unit.

This is one of strategies to ensure that we are incentivizing good behavior on behalf of the property owners to follow the rules.

And I I will be voting in supportive to this legislation, and I just want to express thank you.

Thank you, um Vice Chair Chen.

Okay, so we will now hear from uh Aaron Starr.

Good afternoon, Chair Melgar and members of the committee.

Aaron Starr, Manager of Legislative Affairs on behalf of the planning commission.

The planning commission considered this ordinance on October 17th of last year and recommended approval with modifications.

Those modifications were to one remove the proposed reporting program from the ordinance and instead work with DBI to expand their expanded compliance and control program to include misrepresentations on planning applications.

Two, a modif modified language under 317 J3 related to planning department investigations so that the planning department considers information provided by neighbors but is not required to conduct interviews with neighbors.

Three, amend the definition of UDU to include a 10-year limit.

Four, amend the applicability of the proposed penalty fee to only apply to significant misrepresentations on plans, and to have the planning commission define what significant is, and five, remove the reference to the planning department's property information map and replace it with a more um generic term.

Planning department thanks Supervisor Melgar for incorporating most of the planning commission's proposed modifications, especially the use of DBI's expanded compliance and control program instead of a new reporting program exclusive to planning.

That concludes my remarks and I'm available for questions.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Starr.

And I uh thought we had Mr.

Tate Hannah here, but I don't.

Oh, there you are.

Sorry, I didn't see you.

I don't have a presentation, but I have to answer any questions.

Okay.

Uh well, can you at least say that the uh BIC recommended this?

Yes, apologies.

The BIC review of the ordinance on July 18th and recommended unanimous approval with no recommendations for amendment.

Thank you very much.

Thank you so much, Mr.

Hannah.

Um so uh with that, um, Mr.

Clerk.

Let's go to public comment on this item, please.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Land use and transportation will now hear public comment related to agenda item number two, unauthorized and rent controlled dwelling units.

If you have public comment for this item, please come forward to the lectern at this time.

And if you're waiting for an opportunity to speak because someone is at the lectern already, you can line up to speak along that western wall.

Please begin.

Good afternoon, supervisors.

My name is Avi, and I'm speaking today on behalf of the San Francisco Anti-Displacement Coalition.

We strongly support Supervisor Melgar's legislation to strengthen verification of unauthorized and rent-controlled dwelling units.

This legislation is both timely and necessary as the city moves to implement large-scale upzoning, and as state laws like SB 423 and SB 330 expedite housing production, we must ensure that we are not accelerating the quiet erasure of rent-controlled housing.

Many so-called unauthorized units, particularly pre-1979 buildings, are de facto rent controlled and have long served as critical affordable housing for low-income tenants.

However, due to gaps in our permitting and enforcement systems, these units often go unrecognized during the redevelopment review process.

This allows project sponsors to evade replacement obligations and tenant protections, whether intentionally or not, by simply omitting material information about the property's tenancy history or the presence of UDUs.

This ordinance closes that loophole.

It provides planning and building inspection staff with clear authority to investigate, impose penalties for willful misrepresentation, and cancel inaccurate applications.

It also improves public access to regulatory agreements tied to rent control, which is essential for accountability and enforcement.

This is not an undue burden to require truthful disclosures in development applications.

On the contrary, it is essential to preserving our rent control stock.

Thank you.

Please support this.

Thank you for your comments.

Do we have any further comments for agenda item number two?

Madam Chair.

Okay.

With that public comment on this item is now closed.

Mr.

Clerk, we duplicated the file.

I would like to make a motion that we adopt the amendments as I read into the record, and then uh send it out with a positive recommendation as a committee report as amended.

I've recorded a duplicate in the books on the original ordinance.

There's a motion from the chair that the ordinance be amended and then recommended as amended as a committee report on those motions, Vice Chair Chen.

Chen I.

Member Machmoon.

Chair Melgar.

I.

Melgar I.

Madam Chair, there are three eyes on those two motions.

Okay, that motion passes.

Thank you.

I'd uh like to make uh another motion to uh have the original file um to the call of the chair.

To continue the duplicated file to the call of the chair?

Yes.

On the motion offered by the chair that the duplicated version of this ordinance be continued to the call of the chair, Vice Chair Chen.

Chen I.

Member Machmoon.

Machmud I, Chair Melgar.

Aye.

Melgar I.

Madam Chair, there are three ayes.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

Let's go to uh item number three, please.

Just one moment.

Agenda item number three is an ordinance amending the planning code to eliminate limits on non-residential use sizes in the Castro Street Neighborhood Commercial District, Pacific Avenue neighborhood commercial district, Polk Street Neighborhood Commercial District, West Portal Avenue Neighborhood Commercial District, North Beach Neighborhood Commercial District, and North Beach Special Use District, Regional Commercial Districts and Residential Commercial District, allowing specified non-residential uses that exceed the use size limits to divide into smaller spaces that may continue to exceed the use size limits without conditional use authorization.

Adjust the use size limit in all NCDs to a round number, affirming the planning department's secret determination and making findings of consistency with the general plan in the eight-party policies, the planning code section 101.1, as well as findings of public necessity, convenience, and welfare pursuant to planning code section 302.

Like the previous two items, this item is also on our agenda as a potential committee report, and it may be sent for consideration tomorrow, July 29th, 2025.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

It is something that our city is grappling with, and it's not just us.

And the way that we used to shop and interact with retail has fundamentally changed.

So I started thinking about this based on uh West Portal, which is in my district.

It's a very small uh shopping district.

It's only three blocks long, but I came uh against the prohibition, the cap of 4,000 square feet uh for retail spaces twice in a short period.

The first time was uh when permitting um one of our most successful businesses now, Elena's Mexican Restaurant, which merged two storefronts to make the wonderful space that they have today.

We have a prohibition against uh larger uh sizes than 4,000 square feet uh on this corridor.

Uh so they designed the beautiful space that they have to come in right under.

So they're like 3,998 or something like that.

Um if you've been to Elena's, you will know that there's always a line out the door.

So they could use that extra couple square feet for another table, uh, probably a little more than that.

Um, but you know, uh that would have added, you know, having me do a spot zoning for that space would have added another six months at least to uh an already long permitting uh process because they had to merge two storefronts.

And then, you know, less than a year after they opened another business that went in on the same block at that corner needed actually 5,000 square feet and were prevented from doing that.

They also merged two storefronts, and uh, you know, I have to do spot zoning for that.

And the planning commission said to me, this is not good policy.

Supervisor Melgar, you shouldn't be doing spot zoning.

We should have something that is overalls, which is where this legislation came from.

So I will say that you know it's been received with some trepidation from folks.

Um I want to address that.

Folks I think are uh worried that this opens up the door for um you know formula retail or uh you know better capitalized businesses.

Um I do think that in some instances that is appropriate.

So uh in on West Portal, the Walgreens, which is formula retail, serves as an anchor uh to drive foot traffic for uh the grocery store next door, the little you know, uh fruit stand next door and a bunch of the others.

Um it doesn't obviously make sense to open it up for everything, which is why we're keeping the conditional use requirement.

Um so anybody that proposes you know, uh a larger size will have to, you know, come and go through the conditional use process before they can get a permit, but it doesn't prohibit it.

So if somebody has a good idea, wants to evolve their business model, wants to you know expand their footprint or any of the things that you know could happen in order to adapt to this changing retail environment, they can.

Now that being said, I understand that every district is different.

Um, I uh this legislation for the um doing away with a prohibition uh over a certain square footage, um, you know, hits different districts in different ways.

I have I always defer to my colleagues.

We are joined by supervise uh President Mandelman who represents the Castro Business District, and I did also check with district three supervisor uh Danny Sauter, who also represents part of uh commercial corridor for which this uh applies, and I will be deferring to them for what they want to do in their districts.

The other side of this legislation is the opposite, in that we uh do have a bunch of spaces on these commercial corridors that were built uh big, you know, on purpose.

So on West Portal, we have, I mean, these very strict controls were implemented during the time where there was a lot of financial institutions moving into a short commercial district.

We have a Bank of America, Wells Fargo, a Chase, a City Bank, and there was a fear, you know, that it was taking over.

But here we are 32 years later, and really nobody goes to the bank anymore, or I'm sorry, for those who do some do, uh, but most people now do their banking online and they will use ATMs when they do.

And so the big square footage on West Portal specifically mostly sits empty now.

Uh, and uh, I think that over the next 10 years, we are gonna have to grapple with these big spaces and the spaces that Walgreens has abandoned, a lot of the spaces that you know big box formula retail that is no longer feasible.

It doesn't pencil out now that most people are shopping online, and so um my legislation also does the opposite of you know it it allows for subdivision of those big spaces much more easily, so that you know, if uh you have one of those and you can rent it out to multiple people instead of one, it makes it easier to do that as well.

So, in short, this just gives more flexibility in how to use uh the space, and again, I realize every district is different, it has its own ecosystem, and I do defer to my colleagues and you know, knowing their uh districts best, um, but it is an attempt to grapple with our changing world.

And you know, to be honest, looking at what is going on in one of our biggest uh districts at Westfield Mall and Union Square, I wish we had looked at trends 15 years ago, because I think that you know, uh retail trends do move much more um rapidly than our land use regulations, and then we are faced with um, you know, issues of uh space and also our tax base that uh we're grappling with now.

So with that, uh I see that my colleagues um have questions and comments.

Um I don't see my colleagues on the land use committee, so I will go to uh our uh invited guests.

Uh District One supervisor Connie Chan, and then also uh President Rafael Mandelman.

Supervisor Chen, welcome.

Thank you, Chair Malgar.

Uh this legislation does impact uh outer Clement Streets, uh inner Clement streets, um, and those are really our critical uh commercial neighborhood commercial corridors.

Um I I really have concern, and I'm only can speak uh about the Richmond.

And the the concern is not so much the legislation itself that allowing um uh uh removing the cap of user uh limits uh for the space and the the use size and that to allow it to break it down into smaller.

What the can what it's really concerns me is the layering of previous legislation that we have approved and that creates uh some confusion for me specifically, and I think that if I'm confused, uh I I don't think that I would be doing a good job to explain to our merchants to that locate it in these locations and to be able to speak uh about this impact of this legislation in a way that makes sense.

So the layering of the other legislations that create concerns for me when it starts to break down like lot size as such into a smaller first and foremost is really the parcel delivery uh conditional use legislation, which I authored and we passed a couple years ago.

Uh, what the parcel delivery uh legislation was and at that time really is considering thinking about uh uh companies like Amazon or Target Corporation in terms of processal delivery, and because of such, uh there's actually a waiver uh for that parcel delivery uh legislation to allow 5,000 uh square footage and less without in need of CU.

So that's that's one thing.

Um and so then that when it comes to becomes a smaller lot, that creates a concern for me to think about how that overlapping with the parcel delivery.

And as you know, parcel delivery is an issue for small business and neighborhood commercial corridors when corporation can essentially uh create outposts and delivering packages and um and services and products.

And then the second layering piece that really create a concern for me when it comes to again, not this legislation itself, it's a layering of it is that we actually have uh created uh and and allow and support it because I think that it makes sense for our small business is what we call a flexible use legislation.

Um, and in fact, I was a co-sponsored uh to the legislation, and so were you, Chair Malgar, and it was uh by uh Mayor Breed uh in 2023 to allow a flexible use uh without conditional use uh permits for small business uh in our neighborhood commercial corridor, and those are the six uses, no need for commercial uh conditional use or arts activities, restaurants, retail sales, uh personal services, and professional services and tray shop.

Uh I supported it because I think that you know, for small business needs to change their use, these six users are great on Clement Streets.

Uh, in fact, everywhere in the Richmond, it makes sense without needing to go through a CU process.

Now, once we start to overlapping with this, uh allowing the flexible use, most recent legislation, that the reason the legislation we most recently passed collectively, again, I voted in support of it, is to prioritize formula retail that actually has 20 uh shops and more.

Now we know that neighborhood commercial corridors like in the Richmond, um, we have specific bans like pet shop and um and uh ban on formula retail for food, but that's specifically on Gary Boulevard.

Um you can still apply a CU and you can still go through a formula retail you know process.

You can still actually exist uh in our neighborhood commercial corridor, it does require CU.

So now, but then for if you actually have 20 shop or more, you become a priority with these CUs.

So it's I am I'm trying to understand it doesn't.

So I'm trying to understand, like if you actually are prioritizing, it's not this legislation, Supervisor Chan.

I think you may be thinking about a different piece of legislation.

Absolutely.

And I'm saying the layering of the legislation, like that's what I'm actually trying to say.

That with the layering of different legislations that we already have passed, be a parcel delivery, be a flexible use and be a priority zone for formula retail, and layering into these neighbor commercial corridor, and we're saying again, subdivision or divisions of the larger lots also without requiring CU.

I am I think I am not claiming expertise here at all.

I'm actually just trying to understand the impact on our neighborhood commercial corridors and what that means when you're layering all these legislations together.

Um and Chair Melgar, as you indicated, every different neighbor, that's why we're district supervisors.

We represent our district because we know our district the best and we appreciate the uniqueness of how we created these commercial corridors.

I would not think that you know the inner Clement, the inner Clement is not even the same as outer Clement.

That is even within our own district and neighborhood.

And it's definitely in Obaboa is very different than out of Aboa.

Um, so I I just wanted today to articulate the concern why I have great reservation, not about the use size limits legislation as you propose.

I think it's about the layering of all different piecemeal land use legislation that we have either approved already and that allowing me to look back and allow me conversations with our merchants, understand what layering of these things means for us as a district.

I would really appreciate it.

I know this is scheduled as agenda dyed potentially can be voted out today as a committee report for a vote tomorrow.

I will not be ready to vote for in support of it tomorrow.

I I may be able to understand maybe come around and support this.

Should I be able to have more time to understand this?

So I I just want to articulate um again, I think the approach makes sense.

Uh you know, we have lot sizes that I also wish that we can do more uh with different uses within the same spots because I want to articulate that's including the Ross, Walgreens, Domino Pizza, formerly Bopbuster, like that's a building of an entire block.

Yeah, love to see it broken down, love to see a different use.

You know, maybe it makes use with housing, um, but I I'm just not quite ready uh to understand layering impact of it.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Uh uh Supervisor Chan.

Uh we will have a staff presentation.

I I don't think that this legislation touches district one, but we will hear that from uh the staff.

Uh with that, let's go to President Mandelman.

Thank you.

Um thank you, Chair Melgar, um and uh thank you for um uh your patience with me as I have um thought through uh this legislation and its potential impacts on the Castro.

Um I am quite sympathetic with um the idea that we shouldn't be relying on absolute caps, um that it makes a lot of sense to um have conditional use that allows uh that allows owners to go uh great to to greater sizes with it, you know, with some kind of process.

And um I think that just makes sense.

Um the challenge for me with this has been that as I have thought more about the potential overlay of some state legislation that for new construction might mean that a CU is not really a CU and that we might not actually have the ability to um for our planning commission to sort of thoughtfully think through whether a larger size use makes sense um that I got nervous about eliminating the caps in the castro and CD and I got um more nervous when I got a letter from my uh merchants group um expressing their concerns and so I want to thank you again for your patience with me and um I hope the I have circulated a my proposed amendment which I um hope the committee will consider to knock the castro out just of the portion of the legislation that um that takes off the size limit I think other parts of it including parts that allowed allow uh owners to break up their um their larger parcels more easily is um is a very positive thing so thank you.

Thank you uh President Mendelman super uh Vice Chair Chen.

Thank you Chair Melgar and Claire and I actually would like to um request uh duplicate a duplicate file for this original version um I again I I think I hear um um I appreciate first of all I want to appreciate supervisor uh supervisor melgar for moving forward this legislation again and I do understand that uh there it's a burden for business to have to seek case by case legislation to exemption to the use size limit that it's existing now neighborhood commercial district court uh controls the portion of this legislation that um provides additional flexibility to subdivide larger vacant store fund space it's particularly meaningful to some of the changes that I actually also see in my neighborhood uh commercial corridor the larger store fund spaces uh once was occupied and and have been also proven it's really hard to lease up compared to store fund with a smaller footprint um the vacant wargreens in on mission the radio shot store fund uh mission in my district are perfect sample of this um but I do hear uh a lot of concern however and and other portions of the this legislation uh that removes the use size caps in some NCDs may seem like the modest change but some controls were put in place in order to protect small business from being squeezed out by larger business with more resources.

So generally I I think um we have seen larger retail stores can be contributing to our local economies more effectively where they are not competing with smaller business.

For example the Union Square Venice Avenue district that they do not have use size limit and are largely characterized by larger groups of four commercial space and I am also very concerned with the mayor's uh zoning of the city's commercial corridor uh commercial corridor coming forth there will be undoubtedly that uh demolition of buildings with multiple small buildings and I believe that it is continued to be crucial that at this building to be replaced with space that is accommodating small business and not extremely large space that will be affordable to small business so uh so with all that I believe this legislation is moving fast and I am uh very concerned that uh we uh do not do our due diligence to access all this can to assess all this concerns uh so with with that I again affirm to duplicate the file and I'm also um uh before the presentation I would also like to make a motion to adopt a supervisor President Mendelman's uh amendment to this legislation.

Okay, thank you uh vice chair chan.

If I could have the presentation from the planning department, and if you could also address some of the issues that have come up uh from comments from my um colleagues specifically, where this applies and where it doesn't, and also whether any this legislation touches any of the existing use restrictions.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair Melgar um and members of the committee and Supervisor Mandelman and Supervisor Chan, Audrey Merlone, planning department staff.

First, the commission report.

The planning commission heard this item on July 17th and voted to recommend approval of the ordinance.

They did encourage also that they sponsoring supervisors conduct outreach to the merchants associations just to further explain what this ordinance does and does not do.

As to Supervisor Chan's questions, both myself and Aaron Starr would be happy to elaborate potentially on some interactions with other uh pieces of legislation.

So the the first question I believe is whether this affects areas outside of the listed NCDs.

The second portion of the ordinance, which allows very large uses that have been pre-existing to become smaller and to subdivide without having to go through additional processes or potentially even being outright banned, that does extend more citywide.

Essentially, we're allowing non-conforming uses to go closer to conformity by becoming smaller, even if that subdivision would create a net new non-conforming unit, so one that does not uh comply with our existing use size limits in that district.

That being said, in relation to parcel delivery, um I do understand that we have this exemption for 5,000 square feet for smaller parcel deliveries.

I will say, you know, in relation to this ordinance in a large space being subdivided, that is something where it would need to be a distinct and separate new unit of subdivision.

And so if a parcel delivery business wanted to locate in a space that is 5,000 square feet or less, they could do that and go adjoining to the next building and the next building in the next building just as easily, if not more easily, with existing smaller spaces today, as they would to take a very large space and start subdividing it into 5,000 square foot spaces.

So again, if a parcel delivery business is trying to subvert the use size limits, um, they they could locate today in spaces that are 5,000 square feet or less.

If there are spaces that are available adjacent or across the street, they could then locate there.

So I don't see how this ordinance will necessarily negatively impact that because again, when we're saying a large space could subdivide, we're truly saying it would have to become a new unique separate space.

There couldn't be false partitions put up and calling it a separate unit.

Um I would love to bring up my colleague Aaron Starr, who's more versed on the flexible retail uh changes that have happened in relation to this ordinance.

And I'm of course happy to answer any additional questions.

I will say one small other uh note I'd like to make is that these hard caps on use size limits in our other NC districts.

We have dozens and dozens across the city.

Um I know the examples of the Van S corridor and the Union Square Corridor were brought up, those are not NC districts, those are much larger commercial districts.

Um I would encourage the supervisors to look at some of our other neighborhood commercial districts, most of which do not have hard caps on use size, and yet we see very, very few conditional use authorization applications, if any, in the last 10 years to merge spaces to create something that would be more than 4,000 square feet.

And with that, I'll bring up Aaron Starr.

I see you, Supervisor Chin.

If we could allow Mr.

Starr to make his presentation and then follow up with questions.

Thank you.

Just one clarification uh parcel delivery service is a production distribution and repair use.

It's mainly found in our PDR districts.

Um it's not permitted in the inner or out of Clement zoning districts, and I don't I don't think it's permitted in any NC district, to be honest.

But we do have 47 of them, and majority of those do not have these maximum use size caps regarding flexible retail.

Um, I believe there was an ordinance that expanded it to allow it throughout the city.

However, with flexible retail, you're only permitted to do the uses that are principally permitted in that zoning district.

So if it requires conditional use authorization, you would still need to get conditional use authorization for that use.

I will note with flexible retail, though, we've had two in the past five, six years since it's been in the planning code.

So, thank you, Mr.

Shark.

Uh Supervisor Chan.

I mean, yes, but that's a the whole point of C U, right?

Like, I mean, I think I thought the legislation of the parcel delivery service is that you can, like, yes, typically you would at a PDR, but through the CU process, you can to apply for the change of use and then conditional use, and therefore you can actually set up there.

So the I thought that's what CU is for.

Uh yeah, that's what a CU is for, but individual uses are either permitted, conditionally permitted with conditional use, or not permitted.

And a parcel delivery service, which is an industrial type use, are not permitted in neighborhood commercial districts.

So even though there's an exemption for CU below 5,000, the use is not allowed in neighbor commercial districts, period.

So you can't get a CU, you it's not allowed in those districts.

Oh, great.

Thank you.

So help me understand.

So you say, for example, we have a whole block here and that's more than 5,000 square feet, and then now we they okay.

You know, I actually I think that's just too hypothetical.

Uh I I appreciate it.

I mean, I I here's my question then.

So, how does that impact for the Richmond?

I mean, I think that we kind of talk a little bit about the sections of, you know, the non-residential use size limit in these corridors, and then seeing just the exemptions for for uh including us, and does not not include us because that's what Chair Malgar said, it actually does not impact the Richmond.

What does impact the Richmond is allowing larger spaces to be chopped up into smaller spaces, and that is so right now we have a lot of people coming in where they have like a 10,000 square foot space and they want to make two 4,000 square spaces and one 2,000 square foot space.

But because you're only allowed one non-compliant space, you can't do two for the thousand square foot spaces.

You have to chop them up into smaller.

Um, which takes people by surprise because they think, well, I'm coming closer into conformancy.

So this ordinance actually takes that logical step and allows you to come closer into conformacy.

But I thought that's what we're trying to do, right?

Like I mean, I think that formula previously we have actually committed to the flexible use, is because we recognize, well, at least for the rich men.

We we came on board and we say let's do the flexible use because we can see if there is a 5,000 square feet, but then now I half of it wants to be coffee shop, and the other half I want to do a gallery.

You don't need a CU for that, correct?

For the Richmond, right now.

So if uh the kind of two different issues.

One allows you to take a large space and chop it up into smaller spaces.

Um that's a big part of the ordinance and something that we're very excited about the planning department because we get a lot of confused property owners or tenants about that issue.

So set that aside, flexible retail allows you to operate uh two or more different uses in a space without getting additional approval.

So you can you can operate two or more uses in a space, but you need to get individual approval for each one of those.

So the flexible retail definition says there's no six different uses that you can kind of switch out.

And the idea was is that some people like to play with their business plan and try different uses out.

Um but like I said, we have we found the use not to be very people aren't taking it up as much as we thought.

There's only been two so far.

I mean, I think the Richmond is it's definitely working towards that.

I think CO rock in and just thinking about different places that they're they have that different attempt.

So help me understand then with the big lot, you can't just put up a wall and then say, you know, like here's we want to use it for co like gallery and then the other one for retail.

You have to demolish the structure, and then you have to rebuild.

Like, how may I understand how does that work?

Like, because it's like I'm just so the flexible retail is uh the idea is that you have one commercial space.

Like you have a storefront, there's one space, you say say it's 2,000 square feet, and you're allowed to kind of experiment with different uses in that space if you have a flexible retail use to definition there.

So I'm sorry, uh supervisor chain.

Are you um I'm kind of asking why we need this legislation because the flexible uh use legislation already covers this?

So, you know, the logistics of that is that if you're a landlord and you have a 10,000 square foot space and you have like three different tenants who want to share the space, they'd be having to willingly go into this, you know, business partnership with each other that not every small business will want to, because you're depending on two other businesses who may or may not survive to make the rent that you were on the hook for for the whole 10,000 square feet, and this would allow the landlord or landlady to proactively be able to subdivide that space and be able to individually uh offer that to like three different businesses, if that's what they want to do.

It's just the flexibility of both, but you know, like if we are only relying on the flexible use legislation, that is uh also making people enter into a business relationship that they may not be willing to enter into on both sides, both the tenants with each other and the uh, you know, property owner.

But then if I understand correctly, it's not like you can just put a wall and call it a day.

So how does it work?

Like, do you need to demolish it?

Do you rebuild it?

Like, how does it actually physically work?

Thank you, supervisor.

I just want to make sure I understand.

So the scenario in which you're talking about is that you have a business that wants to be flexible retail.

They want to have two or more uses operating in one space.

Assume so great.

So in that scenario, you have one space, let's say it's a 2,000 square foot space, you have to make that one space work for all the different combinations of uses.

There would be no permanent partitions divide subdividing that space unless you were to file a permit to do so, and then it's no longer flexible retail because you're creating different individual units.

The whole idea is you could have in a flexible retail scenario, you could have a coffee shop in combination with a bookstore, and um you could have a nail salon in combination with with two or three other uses, but it's separate and distinct from use size limits.

So currently, in neighborhoods where we have a hard cap on use size, if someone wanted to come in and say, I would like to operate three different uses in this one space, that would be okay.

Can you do it under a flexible retail permit, which means we would look at what the different uses they're proposing are and say, are they principally permitted in this underlying zoning district?

If so, great.

Do they also fall into the categories that are listed as flexible retail?

If so, great.

Then they all have to operate within that one space.

If they start saying, well, then we're also going to be the building next door, the unit next door, all of us, you're not flexible retail anymore.

You're operating two different uses.

The second that you partition that space and create a different unit.

Is that clarifying?

Yeah, so I think then go back to my Amazon examples.

So you've and I am also trying to understand, so like just absolutely no parcel delivery at all in a neighborhood commercial corridor, or if Amazon wants to come in and they bought, they get a, you know, 2,500 square foot, and then they decided that 500 is for loading, and then the other 2,000 is for storage, and they subdivide it.

Do they need to do they need a CU?

So again, just to re-emphasize, sure.

So just to reemphasize, we're talking about two separate issues.

So in our neighborhood commercial district zoning districts, you will have land use permissions, and they will say one of three things for any particular use.

It will say it's either principally permitted, conditionally permitted, or not permitted, right?

And thanks to my colleague Aaron Starr for researching and confirming that parcel delivery as a use is not permitted in neighborhood commercial districts.

So whether the space is a 1,000 square foot space, a 10,000 square foot space, you cannot apply for a permit to operate a uh parcel delivery use in a neighborhood commercial district.

It sounds like where the 5,000 uh CUA, the conditional use authorization comes in, is in our districts that might otherwise prohibit large parcel delivery, like some of our PDR districts, but they created this legislation to say if you are a small parcel delivery, then the space can be no more than 5,000 square feet.

So taking it out of the neighborhood commercial districts, we know it cannot happen there at all.

Moving over to your question about could they subdivide?

Let's say we have a very large space in a PDR district.

That's where we once again with this legislation get to the idea that if they wanted to try to subvert and say we want a conditional use for a 5,000 square foot uh parcel delivery space, and to do that, we're going to subdivide a very large space into 10 different 5,000 square foot units.

First of all, they still have to go through a conditional use authorization in front of the planning commission for each one of those spaces to establish that use.

I don't think that's going to pass muster with the planning commission to see an application five times over or 10 times over for five or 10 different 5,000 square foot parcel delivery spaces all next to each other.

And then on top of that, again, they have to be subdivided.

They can't just have a false partition put up and start calling in its own unit.

And they could attempt to do something like that today with existing small spaces that might be vacant next to each other.

But again, the control is still in place, which is a CU, is required in order to even establish it in a PDR district.

All of that has nothing to do with this legislation.

Well, someone has to tell the UPS store on Gary that because they do exist there.

But okay.

Supervisor Chan, I appreciate all the good questions.

So with that, um Mr.

Clerk, let's go to public comment on this item, please.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Land use and transportation.

We'll now hear public comment related to agenda item number three planning code use size limits.

If you have public comment for this item, please come forward to the lectern at this time.

And if you're waiting for your opportunity to speak, you can line up to speak along that western wall.

First speaker, please.

Hi there.

I have letters actually for um for the um supervisors and um for the moment.

Okay, cool.

So um and I'm reading on behalf of the North Beach Business Association.

So, dear Chair Melgar and members of the land use committee.

Following a productive meeting with Danny Um District Three Supervisor Danny Sauder earlier this week.

I am writing on behalf of the North Beach Business Association to request police that request that North Beach be excluded from the current use size limit legislation to allow time for a more tailored solution.

During our discussion, we expressed our willingness to explore a middle ground, including increasing the current use size cap rather than eliminating it entirely.

We believe this measured approach would better serve North Beach's unique character while still supporting business growth.

With Supervisor Souter's pending legislation specific to district three commercial districts, we see an opportunity to craft a compromise that balances the need for um business flexibility with the success of our community small business ecosystem.

We respectfully request additional time to work collaboratively with collaboratively with Supervisor Souter um to develop this balanced solution rather than taking a piecemeal approach, removing North Beach from the current legislation would allow us to continue our productive negotiations.

As we wrote to the planning commission, it is our position that the justification for eliminating the existing size limits on non-residential uses does not make sense for small businesses that occupy the commercial corridors in North Beach, which has led the way to um in economic recovery as um evidenced by our low city low vacancy rates that are even lower today than before the pandemic.

So yeah.

Um the existing limits on non-retail use sizes have been instrumental in our commercial district success, preventing larger retail uses that could catalyze rent increases and displace existing businesses.

As a result, our small businesses, many of them legacy businesses, are thriving.

Our vacancy rates are even lower than before the pandemic demonstrating that this success.

So we look forward to continuing dialogue and thank you for consideration.

That's from Stuart Watts of the North Beach Business Association, and the letters are co-signed by the Business North Beach Business Association, the Castro Merchants Association, and the West Portal Merchants Association.

Thank you for your comments.

I'll retrieve those in a moment.

Next speaker, please.

Uh good afternoon, supervisors.

My name is Paul Wormer, and I live very close to Phillomore Street on California.

And have been very active in in issues relating to formula retail and land use in the Philmore, Upper Fillmore.

First, I 100% support legislation to really make a very flexible opportunity to reduce use sizes in ways that make sense for this business for the pro for the property owner and the location.

I think that's an excellent idea.

I am much more concerned about removing use size limitations in general.

Also making it clear that if they do not leave and take the buyout bonus, the rent offer that will be made when their lease extension comes up is so high that the local merchant cannot uh survive.

So there are real potential disincentives.

There may be some districts where this is appropriate.

The neighbored commercial districts that depend on local uh quirky uh merchants who know the neighborhood, those people will be put at risk if there are opportunities for landlords to combine two storefronts in a building, etc.

So I view this as a very high risk proposition.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Do we have any further speakers for agenda item number three?

Madam Chair.

Okay.

Public comment on this item is now closed.

Um in uh just to address a couple of the comments that were said, um, not all neighborhood commercial districts have hard caps.

Uh I don't think yours does, Mr.

Wormer.

Um, but uh, you know, I I understand people's trepidation with changing anything.

Um I will also add that I did not receive um any amendments uh by supervisor Sauter uh from uh district three and I trust that um he will work with folks um merchants in his district to uh get to a place where everybody can yield but that's not my district, so I'm not gonna do something uh that will um affect someone else's district without their uh knowledge or uh interest.

So with that, um I think that uh vice chair Chan had uh a couple motions uh which I think you if you could restate them because there have been a lot of things that thank you, Chair.

Um I would like to make a motion to adopt supervised, I mean to adopt uh President Mendelman's um amendments to this legislation, which is examining uh excluding the castrel.

Okay.

Just for my clarity, if I may ask, you also indicated a desire to duplicate the file.

Do you want the duplicate to be after that motion to amend before the motion, please?

Before the motion to amend.

So first I'm gonna record a uh action to duplicate the file and set one to the side while we make these other amendments.

And then we have a motion from Vice Chair Chen that we accept the amendment as presented by Supervisor Mandelman.

On that motion, Vice Chair Chen.

Chen I.

Member Mandel Mandel, excuse me, member Machmood.

Machmuda, Chair Melgar.

I Melgar, I, Madam Chair, there are three ayes.

Thank you.

Without recommendation as a committee report.

Without with DAO recommendation as a committee report.

Without recommendation, as amended as a committee report.

Just a moment while I write that down to make sure I have all the details.

On the motion offered by Vice Chair Chen that the ordinance be sent to the Board of Supervisors as amended without recommendation from land use and transportation as a committee report for consideration tomorrow.

On that motion, Vice Chair Chen.

Chen I, Member Machman, Mockwood Machmood I, Chair Melgar.

Aye.

Melgar I.

Madam Chair, there are three ayes on that motion.

Um and if it's okay with you, Vice Chair Chen, I would like to make a motion that we continue the original file to the call of the chair.

On the motion offered by the chair that the duplicated ordinance be continued to the call of the chair.

On that motion, I was chair.

Yeah.

On that motion, Vice Chair Chen, should I restate it?

Okay.

To continue to the call of the chair.

Vice Chair Chen I.

Member Machmoon.

Machmood I.

Chair Melgar.

Aye.

Melgar I.

Madam Chair, there are three eyes on this motion as well.

Okay, great.

That motion passes.

Thank you, colleagues.

Thank you, staff.

Okay, let's go to item number four, please.

Agenda item number four is an ordinance amending the building code to require buildings undergoing major renovations to remain or convert to all electric buildings with exceptions for physical and technical infeasibility, commercial food establishments, non-residential to residential conversions, buildings with recent major system replacements, and 100% affordable housing units.

Affirming the planning department's secret determination and directing the clerk of the Board of Supervisors to forward the ordinance to the California Building Standards Commission upon final passage.

Like the previous three items, this item is also on our agenda as a potential committee report, and it is eligible to be sent to the Board of Supervisors for consideration tomorrow, July 29th, 2025.

Thank you so much, Mr.

Clerk.

We are now uh joined by the sponsor of this jet legislation, this great legislation.

Uh, President Raphael Mandelman, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Chair Melgar.

Thank you, colleagues.

Um, the legislation before you builds upon our city's all-electric new construction ordinance, which requires that systems in new buildings be all electric and not powered by natural gas.

This ordinance will expand that all-electric requirement to cover major renovations or projects that take buildings down to the studs in order to make substantial upgrades and improvements.

When we passed the original all electric new construction ordinance in 2020, the goal was to reduce indoor pollution and improve the health and safety of our residents while building toward a more resilient future for our city.

San Francisco's climate action plan calls for us to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040.

Buildings account for 40% of our emissions or more, meaning that we must convert aging gas infrastructure to all electric in order to reach our CAP goals.

This major renovations legislation builds incrementally on the new construction ordinance.

Major renovations are defined to include projects involving both significant structural upgrades and mechanical upgrades.

We're asking that when a property owner is perform performing that kind of rehabilitation where they're removing and upgrading their systems, that these new systems be all electric.

It's worth noting that the Bay Area Air Quality Management District will also soon begin enforcing rules that ban the installation of natural gas appliances starting in 2027 with full implementation by 2031.

This ordinance is the result of a lot of work over time for two years.

Uh SF Environment worked with members of the building operations task force to discuss the legislation, solicit feedback, and address their concerns.

I, in my office, have also met with numerous stakeholders to discuss their concerns, and that's included affordable housing and market rate developers, small and large property owners, environmental advocates, and others.

I cannot claim to have fully addressed all their concerns, but we have taken their feedback seriously and the legislation is better for it.

Um in that spirit, I have circulated uh additional proposed amendments to the legislation, which I would ask this committee to make.

Um page three of the legislation.

Uh there's a general plan finding on page four, line four of the legislation.

We are proposed we are asking to push back the effective date of the ordinance to July 1, 2026.

On page five, line three, we're clarifying that uh B and F occupancy businesses are exempt.

Our original all electric legislation had an exemption for uh for um restaurants.

This expands that to include um food processing establishments and commercial kitchens not associated with restaurants, that's B, and um factory industrial uses such as bakeries, that's F.

Um, on page five, line sixteen to seventeen, we've made some changes to push the implementation date for affordable housing projects to July 1, 2027, and we have extended the period to apply for waivers to January 1, 2031 through an expedited waiver process that is not in the legislation but will be described in an administrative bulletin.

Um, and then on pages five and six, lines 25 to 31, uh we've um provided that uh steam energy will uh will count um as all essentially all electric.

Um and I have requested language that is not exactly what uh we wanted, and I think what we want to say is that use of steam generated off-site for space conditioning, water heating, laundry equipment, and cooking appliances is permitted, and our city attorney can percolate over whether that is something that this committee can do or whether I have to come back tomorrow with the full board and uh and do that there.

Um, and I think that's it for the amendments I'm asking for today.

But of course, I we've all also through conversations with stakeholders, we have identified some issues that will be addressed through an administrative bulletin and department staff can talk more about this.

But uh we have we are asking that an expedited waiver process go through the city's um uh municipal green building task force uh for affordable housing.

Um, we're also going to be introducing an ordinance to allow for Mo CD to have a seat on the Green Building Task Force.

Um, and we are also looking to SF Environment and DBI to work on a clear process for exemptions tied to PGA, PGE delays that uh will work for people in the real world who are actually trying to get their projects done.

Um, in addition to all of those amendments, I recognize that there are uh further changes that some folks would like to see to the legislation, and so I'm gonna ask this committee to duplicate the file as amended in case when we through the course of our uh further consultation in August, uh we may have a chance in September to make further changes.

However, as uh you may know, we are on a time crunch.

Um AB 103, which is the state's budget bill, uh, will go into effect on October 1st and will include um limitations on the ability of local governments to adjust building standards across California.

Um I think that although I understand the purpose in expediting redevelopment communities impacted by this year's Southern California wildfires.

I think it's an unfortunate change insofar as it's gonna make it much harder to um to make green building legislation or some of the other things we might want to do locally.

So to that end, I think we are in a hurry.

I would like to uh for this committee to forward this legislation as amended to the full board for consideration a first time tomorrow and then take it up again at that first meeting in September.

And then if we find that we're making additional changes, perhaps in September we'll have the opportunity to follow up with some more amendments.

I want to thank uh all the city staff who've worked on this legislation over the years.

I want to especially thank uh Director of the Department of Environment, Tyrone Jew, and Cindy Cummerford and Barry Hooper and Alice Hurr and Joseph Piasecki and Charles Sheehan from uh SF and all from SF Environment.

I want to thank Deputy City Attorney Rob Kapla for his work.

I want to thank Calvin Ho in my office.

I want to thank all the stakeholders and whether supportive or not, who have engaged with us on the supportive side.

I definitely want to thank Sierra Club Climate Emergency Climate San Francisco Climate Emergency Coalition, Spur, but uh to everyone who helped make the legislation better, thank you.

And then, of course, I want to thank uh co-sponsors Melgar, Mahmood, and Fielder.

And after comments from my co-sponsor, uh Supervisor Mahmoud, um, I think we would, I would love to have Cindy Cumberford and Barry Hooper from SF Environment present, or maybe Cindy Comerford and Tyrone Juan.

Chair Melgar, members of the committee, Supervisor Chan, Board President Mandelman.

It's been a long road to get to today, and you heard Board President Manelman mention how long these conversations have taken, but they extend back even further than two years when we adopted our 2021 Climate Action Plan.

It laid out 170 strategies, including policies that we need to do as a city in order to achieve our net zero goals.

And we in the environment community tend to focus on carbon emissions and the effects on the planet, but there are other lenses that we looked at as we were developing our climate action plan and as we were considering this legislation.

First and foremost around equity and health.

The impacts of burning natural gas is the equivalent of putting a tailpipe in your home.

We don't tend to think about it that way, but that's essentially what we're doing.

When we burn a fossil fuel, you are burning and creating nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, which is either indoors in our spaces, or vented outdoors into our communities and affect the planet.

And that's something that needs to change.

We can look at research just within the past two years, and we can see the devastating impacts that indoor air pollution is having.

12.7% of all childhood asthma cases also can be linked to natural gas.

This is not a kind of a theoretical exercise of trying to save the planet.

This is about saving our children's lungs and their future and not locking in pollution now when you're doing major, major work, and I want to underscore major, which we're gonna go over in Cindy's presentation.

And I get it, this is resulting in change, and everything we're talking about as it relates to sustainability, everything we need to do around the environment and climate change, all revolves around change because the change has to happen within the systems that we have embedded within our society today, and it makes it that much more difficult.

And as board president Manelman said, everyone's coming to this, and I know they're rolling up their sleeves, trying to figure out how do we make this work, right?

Dealing with financial pressures and economic pressures and health pressures and all of these externalities, but the reality is we have to move forward.

And when we designed this legislation, we did our best.

But also listening to the needs of what we need to do as a city so that we don't lock in health impacts that become due down the road in terms of health costs, and also the cost of the retrofit impacts as you lock in infrastructure now that in 10 to 15 to 20 years, as all of our natural gas systems across the state of California get eliminated, you now have to pay four times as much to retrofit your homes.

So at the time when you're doing these major renovations, it makes economic sense to do this work now.

And so we're not forcing everyone to do these these major renovations.

So I want to be clear that the idea that this is going to somehow stop jobs.

No, this is work that would already be happening.

We're just saying, hey, let's just make sure that if you're gonna do this, let's do it planning for the future.

And that means going electric.

That means making sure that these homes don't have to breathe in that pollution, and making sure that those homes don't have to pay down the road in terms of costly retrofits.

And so with that, I'm gonna pass this over to Cindy, uh, to talk more in more details.

And I just want to mention, sorry, one more thing that this is also grounded first and foremost also in a reliability issue.

Uh our own city, Life Finance Council looked at our natural gas systems and our electricity systems and said, how long would it take for these systems to come back online after a seismic event for the electricity systems?

It's a matter of days for our natural gas systems.

Once those pipes break, it's a matter of months.

That means everyone who's stuck on natural gas and doesn't have access to electricity for these heating and cooling systems, they're now left with this burden after a disaster.

And that's the resiliency we also create through this common sense legislation.

And so I want to pass this over to Cindy now to go over the details.

Welcome, Ms.

Cumberfreet.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, supervisors.

My name is Cindy Cummerford.

I'm staff at the environment department, and I'm gonna go through this legislation.

If we can get the slides up, that would be great.

Thank you so much.

Okay, so this was just this legislation is an update to the building code.

This proposal would expand the all-electric new construction ordinance to very limited specific circumstances when a building is either being renovated or substantially expanded, and the building systems are being replaced.

So, installing electric equipment now avoids very costly retrofits to gas systems in the near future.

So essentially, if you're undergoing a major renovation, instead of putting both gas and electric in your building, it would only be electric.

We don't see this as an additional requirement.

We see this as a modern approach to building design and construction.

So going to the next slide.

And this ordinance essentially closes a loophole in the 2020 electric new construction ordinance.

It also follows up on our update to chapter 9 of the environment code and chapter in 2021, which set the city's greenhouse gas targets, and it also established really important goals for trying to reduce natural gas in existing buildings.

So this will not be our last step in the process, but this is a very important milestone in achieving zero emission buildings.

Supervisor Middleman already talked a lot about our robust stakeholder engagement.

Just gonna go through this very quickly.

We have been working on this piece of legislation for over two years now.

We co-created this legislation with the Building Operation Task Force.

That task force was uh a task force of 30 public-private organizations stemming from affordable housing, building owners, uh, tenant rights advocates, CBOs, and city departments such as MOH CD and DBI.

Um Supervisor Mandelman decided to sponsor this legislation in February of 2024, and we have been doing outreach under his direction since then.

We predominantly have been working with housing organizations and large developers.

So this piece of legislation aligns nicely with both what the region and the state are doing.

The Bay Area Air District is in the process of phasing out both gas water heaters and furnaces starting in 2027.

The state is also looking at long-term planning, how we get rid of all of our natural gas infrastructure and how we start to decommission what that is in the state of California.

So this ordinance plugs a really important gap in with what the state and the region are doing.

So why were we doing this ordinance?

Why now?

We've already heard how it saves money.

Replacing mechanical equipment at the time of a major renovation is the most cost-effective and efficient time to do this work.

We've heard a lot from Director Ju about the public health impacts.

Can help avoid San Francisco 122 million dollars in health costs.

This is huge.

And this also will create a more resilient city.

As we know, phasing out just the gas is a combustible fuel.

Those risks become more pronounced during a disaster, and having more electricity rather than gas will help us recover faster from a disaster.

So this slide shows San Francisco's greenhouse gas emissions.

We've heard this before: 44% of our greenhouse gas emissions come from building operations.

Of that 44%, 90% is from natural gas.

So we cannot meet our city's net zero 2040 goals if we do not start phasing out natural gas.

And this piece of legislation is a critical component to moving that forward.

So let's dive into the details of the ordinance and explain what we mean when we talk about a major renovation.

So if you look at the two buildings on the slide, the building on the left is an example of new construction, and a building on the right is an example of a major renovation.

So this policy would affect proposed projects where the scope of work is comparable to a major renovation.

So something significantly close to what new construction would look like.

It will also apply to new additions.

I think this slide shows a really great example.

You see that five-story brick building, that's the existing building, and the new addition was the shiny 46-story building.

So under the existing ordinance, this building was allowed to install natural gas.

Under the major renovation ordinance, it would no longer be able to.

So in our all-electric new construction ordinance, we had a series of exemptions.

Those exemptions will carry forward to the new ordinance.

So they are for physical and technical infeasibility for a specific restaurant or food service needs.

So just as in all in the all-electric new construction ordinance, you will be easily able to get a waiver for commercial food service.

The other two existing exemptions are contractual obligations that were predated, the ordinance, and we will not be able to preempt any state or federal like regulations.

Sorry about that.

These exceptions apply if the electric design is not feasible and gas resolves the very specific issue.

There is a couple more additional exemptions that we have created, working with stakeholders that are specific only to major renovations.

So first, there's an exemption for office to housing.

These projects would be exempt to 2031.

There is an opportunity to reuse mechanical systems if they're less than five years old.

So a project could reuse its existing water or heating systems if they were taking them out and putting them back in, provided they met all state and federal regulations and they were under five years old.

And the last thing is a delay for utility service.

We've heard time and time again that our current IU utility is very challenging to deal with.

The administrative bulletin AB 112 will make sure that utility service delays will be considered for a waiver, and these provisions will be clarified within the administrative bulletin to make sure they're easy to read and the exemption is prominent.

The last exemption I want to talk about is for affordable housing.

So these are for the proposed amendments that Supervisor Mandelman mentioned earlier.

So for affordable housing, you know, this is a group we've been working with for a very long time.

They were on the building operation task force.

We even had a special affordable housing roundtable in November of 2023 specifically on this legislation.

So what we are proposing now is for the first year, affordable housing would be exempt from this regulation.

And for the next four years, there would be a phase-in period.

This would allow for affordable housing to have a flexible, clear off ramp if they were not able to meet the city's required housing goals because of this ordinance.

Their exemption pathway would go through a different process.

It would go through chapter seven of the environment code, which is the municipal green building task force.

We would add MOC MOHCD as a member to this task force, and I think this would be easier process that would be quicker where they would able the project sponsors of affordable housing would be able to get an exemption within 35 days.

So for the last part of this presentation, I'm going to talk about a little bit about cost.

All electric new construction and major renovations can be more cost-effective than mixed fuel homes in terms of both upfront costs and operating costs.

This slide here shows the incremental cost per square foot for a range of different building typologies.

The negative numbers on this slide actually indicate cost savings.

So again, what we're trying to illustrate here is that new construction and major renovations offer a cost effective time to electrify.

So this would be existing going into an existing building and doing the retrofit, not during the time of a major renovation.

So you can see outside of that context, the costs are much more expensive.

Those cost figures that I showed on the previous slides are before incentives.

There are still a variety of incentives that exist.

The 25C homeowner tax credit, the federal one, it will be phased out by the end of the year, but the rest of these incentives are still available.

And there's a lot of incentives available for both low-income and multifamily homes.

And so I just want to end by highlighting two incentives that the city offers.

So one is the Climate Equity Hub.

This is a program that my team developed that offers up to 10,000 for a heat pump water heater for income qualified families.

And this pairs very nicely with a program by the PUC, which is a $50 bill credit after you install a heat pump water heater for two years and up to three years for income qualified families.

So that concludes my presentation, and I'm happy to answer any questions at this time.

Thank you, Ms.

Cumberford.

Supervisor Mahmoud.

First, I want to thank President Mandelman and the Department of Environment for introducing this legislation.

I know it's taken a lot of work and it's very thoughtful and but I want to talk about two things about why I was happy to co-sponsor, which is we really have to make progress on our climate goals, and something that gets lost in the translation is that after cars and car pollution, the second largest source of emissions is buildings.

And unless we're making progress on building decarbonization, we're not going to make progress on our climate goals.

And given we're in a city that unfortunately takes a lot of time to build, we're not able to make progress in terms of new building.

So we're gonna we're trying to work on that as well.

Um that's why I think this legislation is so important.

This is about looking back on the buildings at time of replacement to ensure we're making progress in the homes and the buildings that a majority of San Franciscans live in.

And that's why this is so important.

And second, the reason that's also important in the college is not just about our climate goals, it's about health.

With uh these types of devices that we're looking to replace, uh Knox, these have been shown to have double-digit impact on asthma and other health conditions as well.

And when we're talking about electrification, we're not just talking in turn about progress on our climate goals, we're talking about progress on our goals around health and health care in San Francisco as well, because a lot of the impacts of climate change predominantly infect people of color, immigrants, uh, which represent a lot in our neighborhoods and our districts, especially in District 5.

Um, that's why this legislation is so important.

Um, so I'm excited to continue to support this, and I do appreciate as well the amendments that uh President Mandelman has around affordable housing to make sure that we're balancing the ability to build more affordable housing while offering off-ramps and exemptions uh for affordable housing uh through 2031 in this language.

So I appreciate those amendments as well.

Um, yeah, I'm excited to continue to co-sponsor this and appreciate all the work that the Department of Environment did in partnership with President Mandelman's office on this legislation.

Thank you.

Supervisor Chen.

Thank you, Chair Melga.

Um, and also thank you, uh President Mendelman for introducing uh this legislation.

And I would like to begin that to come from I do support San Francisco reaching next zero greenhouse gas emission by 2040, and also all the values of climate benefits, including indoor air quality, public health that also mentioned uh and also a better infrastructure to prepare for natural disasters like Earth Creek in San Francisco.

However, I do want to express uh that the ordinance provides an exemption as off right for office to residential conversions until 2031, but requires affordable housing to go through an additional process to apply for an exemption.

Um I also, you know, have been hearing a lot from our affordable housing organization that there are next to no financial strategy to enable this work because federal sources have currently frozen under the current administrations and affordable housers need time to build a finding to build funding source to enable this work.

Otherwise, critical renovation may go different.

So, under this framework, the vast majority of affordable housing project will have to apply for a waiver.

If we are requiring the waiver process, I want to make sure that we have a process that is predictable, reasonable, and well documented.

And I strongly urge the Department of Environment to develop the criteria for the operating guideline for the waiver in partnership with affordable housing stakeholders.

Again, I also further want to thank um President Mendelman for duplicating the file so we can further address some of the merchant concern that have been bought to our committee.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um, this uh piece of legislation doesn't stand alone.

You have long championed uh our uh climate action goals and practical ways in which we change behavior, change codes, uh, change the way we live to live in the world more sustainably and to solve some of these issues for the next generation, which is the most important thing, I think uh that we're doing in these chambers.

So I uh am uh a proud co-sponsor of this legislation.

Um I will also add that um while I want to make it work for the affordable housing developers and the folks who are producing housing, um, it is a fact that uh our climate emergency uh affects low-income people the most in every way.

So I uh think San Francisco is right to be at the forefront of these issues.

Um I voted on the Bay Area Air Quality Management Agency uh rules that dealt with this, didn't go as far as this legislation does, along with Director Ju, who was also a member of the air quality agency, the regional air quality agency at the time.

Um, and I do think that we are moving in the right direction, uh, which we must do, despite the Trump administration dismantling the regulatory systems of the environmental protection agency, um, and uh rolling back uh alternative energy sources and doing everything that they can to um you know leave the world worse for the next generation.

Um I think we're doing the right thing.

I'm a pride co-sponsor, and I again want to thank President Mandelman for your courage, uh, but also uh the amazing staff at the Department of the Environment for your hard work, for your thoughtfulness, your um, you know, willingness to engage uh with different stakeholders and your flexibility.

Thank you.

Um let's go to public comment on this item, Mr.

Clerk.

Thank you, Madam Chair, land use and transportation.

We'll now hear public comment related to agenda item number four.

All electric built uh all electric major renovations.

If you have public comment for this item, please come forward to electron, and if you're waiting for your opportunity to speak, you can line up to speak along that western wall that I'm indicating with my left hand.

Could we have the first speaker?

Good afternoon, Lawan Ramsey, senior project developer, mission housing development.

The electrification ordinance set to sunset in 2027 creates a significant hurdle with regards to existing housing projects calendared for major rehabs after the ordinance expires.

This new mandate coupled with the financial landscape, i.e.

the 2020 regional housing bond removal, the lack of local subsidies and funding, the competitiveness of tax credit programs, decline in investor pricing, all seemingly puts existing affordable housing stop at risk from being renovated entirely, much less convert it to an all-electric system.

This is not an isolated or abstract argument.

We as affordable housing developers, sponsors, or partners with the City of San Francisco are saying the implications of this ordinance puts at risk the viability of rehabbing critical housing stock as it currently stands for people who need it the most.

If this ordinance comes into effect, we foresee four things: rehabs will be delayed, habitability of units will decline, occupancy rates will drop, and the property performance will fall as well.

We are not here to advocate against the city's goals for electrification, climate resilience, sustainability, or for creating safer homes.

However, we recognize that you cannot decarbonize a home if you're never able to rehab it.

We request that an amendment be made to the ordinance to allow waivers based on documented cost and feasibility permanently or until another time, and we ask for 100% exemption for all 100% affordable housing projects.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Let's have the next speaker, please.

Hi, my name is Chris Sealing.

I'm with Buldea, which is an environmental and economic justice organization based in San Francisco.

And we've been really in support of the concrete efforts of the city to electrify buildings, particularly low-income buildings.

We know that working class people and working class communities and poor communities of color are hit first and worst by the climate crisis.

And we also know a lot about the health impacts of having gas in these buildings, fossil gas.

So we're excited that you're moving in concrete ways towards electrification.

We do, of course, want you to keep in mind and keep thinking about any unintended impacts, including around tenants and displacement, but we know the city has strong protections, and just hope to keep working towards actually implementing those protections.

I think we've been we're very committed to this issue, and we've been working on demonstration projects in the mission, including with deed restricted affordable housers and naturally occurring affordable housing.

We've definitely learned it is much easier and much cheaper to do it during a retrofit process.

And that one of the things that low-income housing naturally occurring and deed restricted need the most is technical assistance.

Like they don't even know how to access the prod the programs that are available.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Let's have the next speaker, please.

Hello, my name is uh Dr.

Robert Gould.

After working as a pathologist at San Jose Kaiser for over 30 years, since 2012, I've been an adjunct assistant professor at UCSF School of Medicine, working in as a collaborator on our program on reproductive health and the environment.

Since 1989, I've also been president of San Francisco Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility, for which I'm testifying today, representing many hundreds of health professionals throughout our region who speak for the health of our patients and communities who are increasingly harmed by rapidly advancing global warming and clearly connected issues of air pollution.

In this capacity, I'm strongly urging you to support the proposed all electric major renovations ordinance.

This would be a key step towards promoting building electrification and ending our reliance on gas suppliances.

As 44% of San Francisco greenhouse gas emissions come from buildings, this measure is a timely move towards reducing fossil fuel gas use in our homes and buildings.

It would be a critical aid towards improving the quality of our Bay Area Air, now some of the dirtiest in the nation, into compliance with EPA healthy air standards established by the Clean Air Act.

This ordinance is health protective, not only for its climate benefits, but also because gas appliances can be a large source of toxic pollution in homes, reaching levels of pollution that would be illegal in outdoor settings.

Children, especially those of color, are particularly at risk of respiratory diseases such as asthma associated with gas suppliance pollution.

So we urge you to strongly support this ordinance for these health benefits and for protecting our climate for our future.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker, please.

Hello, my name is Julie Lindo, and I'm the communications director and uh director of communications and health professional engagement with the San Francisco Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility.

I'm representing, as Dr.

Gold just said, many hundreds of health professionals in the Bay Area.

And I first want to thank the supervisors and Cindy and Tyrone of SFE for your incredibly thorough and spot on presentations and comments about the many health benefits of building electrification and the all electric ordinance.

As you pointed out, our climate efforts in this country are being decimated, and it is extremely important for San Francisco to lead at this moment.

What you may not realize is how many health professionals and community members support building electrification in San Francisco and support this ordinance.

And I also want to encourage you to fund the climate plan, San Francisco Environment Department, and the Climate Equity Hub.

We are so fortunate to have these in our in our uh city, and yet they are funded with um hardly funded at all.

And if we're going to truly lead, we must fund them.

Um thank you for supporting the all-electric renovations ordinance.

Electrification is the future.

Let's lead.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

So the next speaker, please.

Hi, my name is Susan Green.

I'm with the Climate Emergency Coalition, and first I'd like to thank um President Mandelman and SFE for their leadership in bringing this um amendment forward and to um supervisors Melgar, Mahmoud, and Fielder for sponsoring it.

Um I'd like to ask you to do whatever you can to help move it quickly uh through and get it to the mayor's desk in September so that it can become law before the code freeze uh occurs in October.

Um to paraphrase uh President Mandelman, I'm also hoping that this won't and can't be the last step.

We just have 15 more years to reach net zero um for building electrification.

That means we have a huge task in front of us.

I'm a homeowner who has just in the last few weeks completed electrifying my home, and I understand that cost is a huge issue.

I could not have done it without the tax credits and the rebates and the incentives, mostly federal, some state, but most of which are going away in the after the end of this year.

Um, what I'm also hoping you can do is uh get your fellow board members, um, and the mayor's office and the folks at the CPUC, uh, together with the environment department and other departments this fall to figure out a way to scale up to find the funding, the public and private funding that we need that the CLEA report has told us that we need to really help residents and building owners in San Francisco electrify.

We need to accelerate the pace of building electrification.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Let's have the next speaker, please.

Hi, I'm Joni Eisen from SF Climate Emergency Coalition.

And I also want to thank the climate champions, um, Melgar and Mandelman for their ongoing work and for this resolution, this this amendment, and I want to underscore the urgency of it.

Um not only I think about, of course, as a grandmother, my my three grandkids, and what and what kind of world we're we're leaving them, and the fact that we've got to pass this thing fast, uh, because of the really bad misguided state legislation that just passed that means you know that building codes are going to be frozen until 2031, and that that really impacts how we can continue on this path of electrifying buildings.

So anyway, I did want to underscore the urgency.

Um I guess that's kind of it.

And thank you guys so much.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker, please.

Hello, my name is Sam Fishman with Spur.

Um, I'd also like to thank Supervisor Melgar and President uh Mandelman and SFE for the work on this ordinance.

Um I just like to say that you know this um or I appreciate the board's willingness to work with affordable housing groups, um, but I do agree that this ordinance needs to get passed and passed fast before um the building code freeze goes into effect.

I also want to talk briefly about the work that we've done around developing the market for heat pumps, induction stoves, and other all electric equipment, um, and the alignment with the air district rules.

I think as has already been said the cost of eventually having to follow through through with air district rules to purchase um non-pluting equipment in the future could lead to building owners who don't make all electric renovations having to open up buildings twice.

That is a lot less cost effective and a real key rationale for this ordinance.

Um the good news is with um the all-electric transition happening in the barrier already, thanks to the air District rules, we're seeing rapid market transformation that is going to make projects that involve installation of heat pumps, induction stoves, and other electric equipment cheaper and um and easier to conduct.

We are seeing rapid development of the workforce.

We've been working on technical challenges such as the issue around panel and service upgrades.

They're power-efficient design strategies that can address some of these toughest of challenges.

And we're seeing a lot of movement that is going to kind of we're we're confident is going to resolve some of the thorniest problems around electrification, and we look forward to working with the board, with the city, with all the partners on implementing these solutions in the future.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker, please.

Thank you.

My name is Mike Yerkis.

I am the general manager of Cordia Energy Center San Francisco.

Um we would like to offer our full and proud support of President Mandelman's legislation on major building renovations.

We also want to give a huge thanks to President Mailman and Department of Energy and all the staff for including the amendment in the legislation to utilize, to be able to utilize steam as an alternative.

For those of you who don't know, Cortea Energy operates the district steam system in San Francisco.

We've been in place for over 100 years, and we supply steam to 180 buildings, including the one you're sitting in right now for space conditioning and hot water.

So we feel the amendment to this legislation is a major step to catapult the city toward its goals to decarbonize.

We're working on a major project right now.

We're partnering with the PUC to convert our existing operation to all electric, and that that project will be completed within the next eight years.

So basically our entire operation will be electric.

So again, I would like to say, you know, thank you to President Manelman for taking this major step and helping us to become a carbon-free city and a safer city and a friendly city.

Thank you.

Thank you for comments.

Next speaker, please.

Good afternoon, supervisors.

My name is Jesse Rollins, and I'm here today representing the Tinderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation.

We agree with the goal of this ordinance to support the health and safety of our community.

And as TNDC is the largest affordable housing developer in San Francisco, we are committed to achieving all electric housing.

We have proven that commitment when we uh see that it's feasible with timelines and funding.

Our goal, like the goal of this ordinance, is for housing to be all electric.

But we hope to elevate that with funding constraints, we will face challenges with this ordinance.

Quite simply, we need the funding to do this.

But at minimum, we request that our timeline match that for non-residential to residential conversions that expires in January on January 1, 2031.

Following that date, we also want to ensure that a waiver process will be the most effective to improve and sustain affordable housing.

Thank you all for the consideration today, and we look forward to continued conversations to increase affordable housing and to resource our sector so we can do our part in climate action.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Can we have the next speaker, please?

Good afternoon, supervisors.

My name is Brianna Morales with the Housing Action Coalition as their community organizer.

First, we really want to uh extend our appreciation to the work that Board President Mandelman has done, as well as his office to center a sustainability and building policy.

San Francisco should absolutely be a leader in climate resilient buildings, and we've long supported policies that align decarbonization with housing production.

As you continue to refine this legislation, we want to raise some questions to consider.

First is echoing some of the concerns from our affordable housing developer friends surrounding environmental sustainability and upgrades.

These mission-driven developers are already prioritizing electrification where they can, often without any requirements to do so.

They do critical work under tight budget constraints, and they've raised thoughtful questions around 100% affordable housing projects.

And so really just highlighting the risk that vague timelines and added costs and project by project exemptions add to a project's feasibility is something that we'd love to highlight.

Second, on office to office renovations, as we continue to revitalize the downtown core, we ask, how can we support electrification without making it harder to bring jobs, employers, and energy back to our city's economic heart?

Could we be offering incentives instead of mandates for projects that upgrade aging office stock into modern spaces?

Overall, the two questions can be summed up with can we better align these strong environmental goals with the urgent need to build more affordable housing and revitalize our commercial core.

So we appreciate the space for dialogue as we consider clear long-term exemptions for 100% affordable housing and creative incentives for commercial spaces that bring people back into the city.

So thank you for President Mambleman for your leadership on this issue and for your ongoing support and commitment to shaping a more sustainable livable city.

Thank you.

Thank you for comments.

So the next speaker, please.

Supervisors, my name is Elena Engel.

I'm with 350 San Francisco and the San Francisco Climate Emergency Coalition.

I'm not going to speak long.

Everyone has spoken, almost everybody has spoken about the need to get rid of methane in our buildings.

We all know that we have to do this if we are going to promote health and have a sustainable planet.

It is not a question of if, it is a question of when.

So I'm glad to see this registrate this legislation here today.

It is another step towards decarbonizing all of our buildings.

And yes, some valid points have been brought up about the cost for individual homeowners.

I own a two-unit building, and it is expensive.

I've been trying to decarbonize.

I know some of the affordable housing people are concerned.

We have to solve those problems as well, but we must decarbonize.

We really don't have any other choice.

I also just want to bring to your attention that there's about 70 letters in your packet from people who are supporting this ordinance.

So know that this support is broad and it's deep.

And I thank you and hope that you will pass this and that the entire board will pass this.

And by the way, figure out how to actually support the CAP, how to bring enough money to the Department of the Environment that they can actually put forth all the things that are in the CAP.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker, please.

Good afternoon, supervisors.

My name is Paul Wermer.

Yes, thanks to the usual suspects for getting this going.

And I really would like to see it pass.

I do have a couple of comments though.

The first is with respect to the homeowner situation.

I did a fairly major remodel, but it did involve all of the uh heating and such systems about 10 years ago.

I was not allowed to go all electric because all electric water heaters were prohibited, even though heat pump water heaters were out.

So I now face the added expense of doing the conversion at some point in the not too distant future.

The point is when you're doing an all-electric at the time of a major retrofit, the costs are dramatically less than if you're just doing an all-electric conversion in an existing house that you're trying to live in.

That's point one.

Point two is I get a little bit of cognitive dissonance when I hear in essentially the same sessions that yes, it's cheaper to build, and we have to do a carve out for low-income housing because it's going to drive up their costs.

Something tells me a lot of questions about finances and economic models and cost models really haven't been looked at, and that disappoints me given that the city continuously faces financial constraints.

That said, the third thing that I wish would have happened, maybe can still happen, is that as a follow-on to this, there is an active investigation on what mechanisms the city can use to raise funds to support the major low-income uh renovations with grants with with uh no zero interest loans, because if it's genuinely cheaper, that's going to be good for everyone, as opposed to having to tear everything out in 15 or so years and get public money to pay twice for what could have been paid for worse.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

So the next speaker, please.

Good afternoon, Supervisors.

Mark Babson, president of Emerald Fund.

We're San Francisco Housing Developers.

First, I'd also like to thank President Mandelman and Calvin Ho and Sydney Cumberford for months of outreach and dialogue.

Um we deeply appreciate the exception of office residential conversions through 2031.

My two points, I'd like to echo the building inspection commission's recommendation to extend the date to file permits until 2027.

There are many people that have or groups that have bought buildings that have, you know, relied on the existing system, the existing rules, and this would could cause a lot a lot of additional costs, such as new PGE service, which would cost time and money.

So uh extend to 2027.

And then secondly, nonductile seismic upgrades.

Uh that's being talked about rules for first reporting the building, but ultimately can imagine that would be a requirement.

That would be an extraordinary cost for existing buildings, and to layer on the need then to do a PGE upgrade, which could go into the millions and also um uh take a lot of time.

Um it seems like a second burden.

So, if if a building is willing to do the non-ductile uh seismic upgrade, we would ask that they be exempted.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker, please.

Good afternoon, supervisors, President Manelman, Chair Melgar.

Uh, thanks for the opportunity to speak.

My name is Joel Coppel.

I'm a state certified skilled and trained electrician here today on behalf of the San Francisco Electrical Contractors Association, which represents highly trained and experienced electrical workforce.

As our city moves rapidly towards full electrification, our electrical systems are taking on heavier loads, integrating more advanced technologies, and becoming central to building safety and performance.

With this great power comes great responsibility.

The need for qualified professionals has never been more critical.

Safety must remain the top quality, top priority.

Fire alarm and life safety systems are installed by skilled and trained electricians in close coordination with the fire department to meet occupancy standards.

These systems are designed to shut down HVAC systems, recall elevators, and control egress pathways during emergencies.

In major remodels, these protections are even more essential.

For example, when offices are converted to residential dwelling units, people will now be sleeping in these areas.

That introduces a much higher level of risk.

There is no room for error.

Once a building reaches 75 feet or higher, the challenges grow.

Higher occupancies, longer evacuation routes, and greater reliance on functioning life safety systems to save lives.

We strongly urge the city to ensure that electrical work and all the fire alarm and life safety installations are performed by certified trained electricians.

These systems are about life protection, not convenience.

At a minimum, all buildings 75 feet and taller should be held to clearly enforce life safety standards installed by qualified professionals.

We stand ready to support the city's efforts so long as life safety is treated with the urgency and seriousness it demands.

Thank you.

Thank you for comments.

Next speaker, please.

Good afternoon, supervisors.

My name is Judy Lee, representing uh the Chinese Chamber of Commerce.

Uh we're here to voice very serious concerns with the proposed ordinance.

The Chinese chamber represents hundreds of small businesses, including many in Chinatown, one of the city's most historic and culturally significant neighborhoods.

This policy, while well intentioned, would impose a disproportionate burden on older buildings and small legacy businesses, especially traditional Chinese restaurants.

For many of these establishments, gas cooking isn't just a preference, it's essential.

Walk cooking requires the kind of high heat and precision that electric appliances simply can't replicate.

Forcing these restaurants to electrify could mean loss of authenticity, higher operating costs, and in some cases, shutting down their businesses.

What's more concerning is how the ordnance may discourage much needed structural upgrades like seismic retrofits.

Property owners tell us they may delay or avoid improvements altogether if it means being forced into a costly full electrification retrofit.

That's a serious safety and equity issue.

We urge the board to continue this item to conclude include, excuse me, sufficient community engagement, and we also encourage a delay of implementation to include a financial feasibility exemption and to expand exemptions for cultural and culinary uses, especially restaurants in Chinatown and other ethnic communities.

We fully support San Francisco's climate goals, but equity must be built into climate policy.

Let's move forward in a way that uplifts, not displaces our small businesses and historic neighborhoods.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker, please.

Uh good afternoon.

My name is Steth Samborn.

Uh I am a mechanical engineer and a licensed architect in the state of California.

I work for a Smith Group, a large national AE firm that delivers electrification projects nationally.

On top of that, I'm at a technical advisor for the US Department of Energy and co-wrote several design guides on decarbonization of thermal systems, retrofits of buildings, and affordable housing.

I would urge you to pass this very quickly.

I actually think a number of the exemptions are gracious.

We are already delivering these projects at or under cost, market value, across our entire portfolio.

It takes creativity, ingenuity, absolutely, it takes working with partners, but this is not an impossible task.

I delivered my first net zero retrofit of an 1860s building at UC Santa Cruz more than a decade ago.

This is not rocket science.

We can do this today, and we can do it lower cost.

I would urge you to develop technical resources for the city in collaboration with the US DOE's Better Climate Challenge for Affordable Housing.

There are strategies, they're actually pretty easy to deploy around right sizing equipment and avoiding retrofits of the electrical service.

A number of us have been involved with uh community outreach and developing technical resources for other communities, and I know a number of other consulting engineers in the city of San Francisco would be grateful to collaborate with the city to develop these resources.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker, please.

And if we have any further commenters who have comments for agenda item number four, you can line up to speak after this speaker.

I am Teresa Jan.

I am our architect.

I'm also a mom of two young children.

I fully support and hoping that we will pass today, mostly because it is the most important step to do to kind of help our environment healthy and equitable for all.

One thing I do really support what having already talked about the technology is there and the expertise is there.

We just need to all go in full force to actually drive the market cost down.

We just need to have a popular education to understand how uh resident and developer can go about doing this efficiently, quickly, and then give them a lot of resources that they need.

I think workforce development is also crucial as well, as we see is a new climate-related work.

Um, there's we can unlock so much economic development happening based on this ordinance as well.

Thank you so much, and thank you for your work.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker, please.

Good afternoon, supervisors.

My name is Janine New.

I'm the director of the San Francisco Apartment Association.

I'd like to thank um Supervisor Mandelman for his patience in all the meetings that he's conducted with the community, uh, to the Department of Environment who've given numerous presentations and their patience.

Uh, DBI and the commission for the hearing that they conducted.

Um, I'm here today to ask you, please look at seismic safety as a priority when crafting this legislation.

Um, as Mark Babson stated, the cost of electrifying a building when trying to do seismic safety could cost people not to do the seismic work that we so desperately need.

As one that lived here in 1989, I saw the ramifications of buildings in the marina and other parts of the city that needed to be retrofit and brought back quickly.

So I would ask for an exemption for seismic work, not only in nonductal, but all seismic renovations.

That was echoed by the Department of Building Inspection Commission, and I think there's evidence to substantiate that amendment.

And thank you so much for your time.

I appreciate it.

Thank you for your comments.

Do we have any further commenters for agenda item number four?

Madam Chair.

Thank you so much.

Thank you to everyone who came to provide a public comment.

I am gonna just provide a couple comments before I let you close up, President Mandelman, because um, you know, I was the author of the last uh seismic earthquake uh ordinance that we have.

Um we are on a fault.

Uh we are prone to earthquakes.

It is necessary that we retrofit our buildings, and the most cost-effective time to do this kind of electrification is when you open up the building.

Um, if you don't do that, if you do it later, or you don't, you know, you don't do it, it has costs.

Uh and if you do it after you have already opened up your building, um, it costs even more.

And so uh in terms of uh buildings where we have uh uh public interest like affordable housing, um, I think it totally makes sense uh for leadership of our city to step up and think about the long-term maintenance and financing of these buildings and include both seismic safety and electrification.

I think we owe that to our residents, especially since we're paying for it on the public time.

The second thing I wanted to uh talk about is you know, I am uh from Central America, um, our uh culture loves fire.

Popusas are typically uh cooked on uh you know fire, um, not an induction stove.

Uh that is something I grew up with.

Um, and I also know that the people who most suffer from this are women, the people who do the cooking, it's the workers, it's the people who are breathing in the sort of um fumes that come from uh you know uh burning fossil fuels, and you know it's it's hard for me to sort of say, you know, uh let's save money at the cost of the health of people, um, people who take care of others who feed others.

So um I understand that the community needs time to transition.

We unfortunately are up against, you know, a state uh mandate to not change our building codes and also an intense attack on everything environmental and uh sustainability from our uh you know, a federal government, so here we are.

Um, but I just wanted to, you know, make sure we address that because I know it's real, um, and at the same time, you know, if we want to leave a better world for our kids and survive as a species, we gotta start making these changes.

So with that, I will let you uh close up this conversation, President Manblin.

And again, thank you for your leadership.

Thank you, uh Chair Melgar.

Uh I want to thank everybody who came out to speak uh on this on this item.

Um, a few thoughts.

I mean, I want to thank you, Chair Melgar, for your leadership on looking at seismic safety, and um I'm sympathetic uh to the concerns of uh folks who own property or are anticipating having to do significant work.

I think one of the reasons why your legislation is so important is it helps us begin to get a handle on what those costs are gonna look like and what the scale of what is need for needed for these concrete buildings.

Um I'm not ruling out being so depending on what we learn from that initial assessment of being supportive of relief uh in the future, but it feels a little premature to me to do that now and before we really know what we're dealing with.

Now we again I'm asking you to duplicate the file, we can continue the conversation, but uh that's sort of where my head is at on that item.

Um on concerns about restaurants.

I just want to reiterate very clearly there is a specific exemption for restaurants in this legislation, as there was in the original all electric, that um exemption is being expanded to other kinds of uh of food producing spaces that are not restaurants, um uh commercial kitchens not associated with restaurants and um and and bakeries, uh, so um I just I think there may be some confusion about that point.

I don't know, but I want folks to understand that.

And then on the affordable piece, I certainly understand the concern of affordable affordable developers.

We have taken it seriously.

We have um, you know, and in the conversations that I had with affordable housing developers on Friday, I asked whether the intention or the expectation was that no one was going to be able to do um all electric uh retrofits as part of their renovations through 2031, and the answer was no.

The answer was that we are gonna do the very best that we can to go all electric as we do these renovations, but we have some concern about whether we're gonna be able to identify the funding sources that will help us to pay for that.

And we are sympathetic to that, and we don't want those renovations, or I'm sympathetic sympathetic to that, I assume my colleagues are too.

Don't want those renovations not to go forward.

And so what we have created is the most streamlined uh waiver process that we could possibly create for those projects to simply come in and demonstrate to city employees within uh basically a month of the request that uh or or five days if it's an emergency situation that you've looked, you've tried to find the funding, you haven't been able to find the funding, and to get this renovation done, uh you need the waiver.

So this should not stop a single renovation.

We're hoping that there will be um we will see that some of these renovations between now and expect that some of these renovations between now and better times in the future will still um will be all electric.

Um I expect that some will.

I don't expect that all of them will.

Um so that's I mean, responding to those specific points.

You have amendments in front of you.

I indicated that there was a little glitch on one of the amendments that we handed out, which is on page five, at the end of page five.

What we have what we originally proposed was use of steam generated off site for space conditioning or water heating is permitted.

And what I would ask this committee to do instead of that language is the following language, which I will read into the record, and which the city attorney says is okay legally, which is that use of steam generated off site for space conditioning, water heating, laundry equipment, and cooking appliances is permitted.

So it's a basically an expansion on the language we had to include laundry equipment and cooking appliances.

I would ask that the committee make those amendments, duplicate the file, continue the file to the call that the duplicated file of the call of chair, and forward the original amended file to the full board as a positive record with positive recommendation as a committee report.

Thank you, colleagues.

Thank you.

Um I will make a motion to that effect, but first I'm gonna pass close public comment because I did fail to do that.

So public comment on this item is now closed.

Um Supervisor Mahmoud, did you want to?

Okay, no, go ahead, please.

Um, like I make a motion to move the amendments as read into the record by President Mandelman um to the full board uh with a positive recommendation as a committee report and duplicate the file.

Thank you, supervisor.

I'm gonna go through them serially to make sure I have every detail correct.

We have a motion from member Machmood to amend the ordinance, then to duplicate as amended, set that aside, to recommend as amended as a committee report, the original file, and then to continue as amended to the call of the chair, the duplicated version as amended.

Give me a moment while I catch up with all these different thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

Motion offered by member Machmood that the ordinance be amended, then recommended as amended as a committee report.

On that motion, Vice Chair Chen?

Chen I.

Member Machmoon.

Machmood I, Chair Melgar.

Aye.

Melgar, I, Madam Chair, there are three eyes on those two motions.

And then on a motion offered by member Machmood to continue the duplicated file.

Duplicated as amended to the call of the chair.

On that motion, Vice Chair Chen.

Chen I, Member Machmoon.

Mahmoud I, Chair Melgar.

Aye.

Melgar I.

Madam Chair, there are three ayes once again.

Thank you.

Congratulations, President Manelman, and thank you to all the members of the community who came to provide public comment.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

Thank you, Director Jew and Ms.

Cumberford.

Okay.

We are now at item number five and have been rejoined by uh Supervisor Connie Chan from District One, who is the sponsor of that legislation.

So if you want to call that, please, Mr.

Clerk.

Agenda item number five is an ordinance amending the administrative code to prohibit the sale or use of algorithmic devices to set rents or manage occupancy levels for residential dwelling units located in San Francisco and to authorize enforcement by tenants' rights organizations.

Like every other item on today's agenda, this item is agendized as a committee report, and it may be sent for consideration tomorrow, July 29th, 2025.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

Supervisor Chan.

Thank you for your patience with us at the land use committee.

It takes us a while to get through it, but um the floor is yours.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair Malgar.

And again, thank you so much for agenda.

Colleagues, uh, this actually is uh we in San Francisco.

We already currently have a ban on automated rent setting.

Um, and that we're we should be very proud of that.

Uh this is uh a uh file that was duplicated and remained, and uh thank you again, Chair Malgar for as a co-sponsor previously authored by board president Aaron Peskin, and now we continue on with this to add it and amend before you today is what you can see on uh page one uh line three that to authorize tenants' rights organizations to enforce the prohibition against landlords.

And this is uh this legislation is really a complaint-driven and investigation-based uh legislation for enforcement mechanism to be able to authorize tenants' rights organizations to be additional watchdog um to help make sure that we continue to span on automated rent setting.

It's critical.

Uh we see that you know the real estate market is heating up, uh rent it's coming back up.

Uh, we we just really want to make sure that uh while market rent will continue and will remain competitive, that we the that we actually uh make sure that it is also fair and level the play field.

So with that, uh this legislation can continue to close that loophole uh and so that landlords and real estate uh companies, uh management companies can engage with tenants and prospective uh tenants in good faith.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, uh, Supervisor Chan.

Um I don't see um any questions or comments from my colleagues.

Um I just uh want to express my gratitude for uh you know uh keeping up with our changing world uh and protecting tenants in our city.

Thank you.

Um, so with that, let's go to public comment on this item, please.

Thank you, madam chair, land use and transportation will now hear public comment related to agenda item number five, uh ban on automated rent setting.

If you have public comment for this item, please come forward to the lecturer at this time.

And if you're waiting for your opportunity to speak, you can line up along that western wall.

Do we have speakers for this item?

Madam Chair, please do have no speakers.

Okay.

Public comment on this item is now closed.

Um, so I would like to uh make a motion that we adopt the amendments as read into the record uh by supervisor chan, um, and then uh send out uh as amended as a committee report that with a positive recommendation, please.

The motion offered by the chair that the ordinance be amended, then recommended as amended as a committee report.

Vice Chair Chen, Chen I, Member Mahmood, Mahmoud I, Chair Melgar.

Aye.

Melgar, I madam chair.

There are three ayahs.

Thank you.

That was the quickest item today.

Supervisor Chan, thank you.

Um, so let's go on to our last item number six, please, Mr.

Clark.

Agenda item number six is a hearing on the emergency firefighting water system funding and design on the west side of San Francisco.

Thank you.

So again, Supervisor Chan called for this hearing, and I know this is an issue that Supervisor Chan has been very active in for quite some time.

Um, like District 1, District 7 doesn't have high pressure systems, so I'm very interested in uh what the departments have to say.

I will turn it over to you now, uh Chair uh Supervisor Chan.

The floor is yours.

Thank you, Chair Malgar.

I will keep it um succinct, and the reality is that you know this is a long-time coming project, and we have received updates uh from SFUC, our Public Utilities Commission, as well as our fire department uh previously uh we know that uh thanks to Supervisor uh Sandra Lee Viewer, along with uh San Francisco voters with their approval that we had dedicated a hundred million dollars uh bond dollars to uh upgrade our uh emergency firefighting water system on the west side.

Um, however, we also know that you know the cost of it from 15 million dollars per mile to now have increased to 42 million dollars per mile.

Um we know that through our uh most recent hearing that we learn, and thanks to again SEP Public Utilities Commission committed additional 300 million dollars water bomb to really make sure that we have a complete design for the West Side.

So today it's really straightforward and simple.

Uh we we want to hear from the department about where we're at.

It's a huge project.

Um, and also in light of uh thanks to Supervisor Malgar's leadership, we have additional uh housing units uh on the west side, which is very much needed, as particularly in Stonestown.

Um, but and also upcoming conversation about what can we do to bring more housing units and more development onto the west side, but to be thoughtful uh about it and uh to actually understand really what is our capacity to make sure that we can accommodate uh the future development.

So, all together in that context, we're simply getting an update uh from the department and uh they have a presentation today, and we have Katie Miller, director from our SFPUC water capital programs and uh assistant deputy chief Garrett Miller from our fire department.

And the floors are yours.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Uh good afternoon, Chair Melgar and Vice Chair Chan Supervisors.

Uh I'm Katie Miller, Director of Water Capital Programs for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, and I apologize that we weren't able to get you the slides in time, but you have a paper copy, and we have them for the record.

Thank you for the opportunity to present an update on the emergency firefighting water system capital program.

I am joined by Assistant Deputy Chief Gareth Miller of the San Francisco Fire Department to present to you today.

We also have our project team available for questions and answers, including senior project manager Josh Anderson from the SFPUC, uh, SF Water Division Manager Bill Tihan, and Melissa Higby from the Office of Resilience and Capital Planning.

Uh I'm gonna skip the agenda slide for sake of time and go right to slide three, which is a recap of what we presented to you in the January 2024 committee meeting.

Funding was provided for improvements to the emergency firefighting water system through the voter approved earthquake safety and emergency response or ECER bonds passed in 2010, 2014, and 2020, allocating a total of 308 million dollars, which represented 21% of the total bond funding.

Many projects have been completed to date, including 30 new cisterns, emergency firefighting water system reservoir and pump station upgrades, and significant emergency firefighting water system pipeline improvements.

At the request of the Board of Supervisors, a study was completed in 2021, performing a high-level estimate of what improvements would be needed to meet future post-earthquake fire demands citywide.

This study estimated the future build-out of the system would cost at least $4 billion dollars.

Our current priority projects for the Easter 2020 funding and potential future ESER 2028 funding includes improvements to the fireboat manifolds at Fort Mason, Pier 33.5, and Mission Bay Ferry Landing, and to build out the new West Side Potable Emergency Firefighting Water System.

We shared with you in 2024 that materials and project cost increases have decreased at our the forecasted extent of our construction using the ESER 2020 funding.

The SFPUC increased its commitment to providing funding from ratepayer funded water bonds for the potable water benefit from the potable emergency firefighting water system.

The allocation in the 10-year capital plan was increased from $55 million to $145 million.

The project team will design shovel-ready pipeline projects through Richmond through the Richmond District that may be funded with future potential ESAR 2028 bonds.

Your recommendations to our EFWS team were to assure that all strategic planning for locating size, location, and capacity of the system and pipelines should carefully account for all potential future housing policies and densities.

Also, the city should prioritize the EFWS for sustained future city funding, such as through additional future ESAR bonds.

Finally, supervisors would like to receive periodic updates on the project status.

We are currently updating strategic planning models for refining our estimates on future potential water demands from post-earthquake fires citywide.

The modeling we are performing carefully considers potential fires that may be ignited from earthquake ruptures, such as from natural gas and electric wiring ignitions, and considers future building density and building materials, all local and regional housing policies, including the housing element, assumptions for the city's move away from natural gas towards more electrification, and the redevelopment projects per the San Francisco development pipeline.

This modeling results in predicting potential water demands that the system should accommodate to extinguish fires and prevent fire spread, such as through creating fire breaks.

Next slide.

And now we will provide an update on the West Side Potable Emergency Firefighting Water System.

As a reminder, this system is a dual-purpose seismically resilient water system that provides high pressure post-earthquake fire suppression and also low pressure drinking day-to-day water for post-emergency recovery.

We've established a few objectives for the program.

One is to increase the protection of life and property from individual fires, to decrease major fire conflagrations by providing reliable fire breaks, to increase drinking water reliability and availability after a large earthquake, and that our expansion projects provide immediate benefit with each phase of construction.

And the takeaway from this is the system is a critical life safety infrastructure for the city that provides immediate and incremental benefit as each phase is constructed.

This slide shows a map of the proposed potable emergency firefighting water system pipelines and pump station locations on the left and a color-coded schedule for the projects on the right.

To orient you, Lake Merced is toward the bottom of the map at the south, and Golden Gate Park and Richmond District are to the north at the top.

The project will be constructed in phases represented by the colors on the map and in the schedule.

The colored portions of the schedule indicate projects currently funded using ECER 2020 and water bonds, and the gray shades represent phases not yet funded.

The green vertical bar at the end of 2028 represents timing when ESAR 2028 funds might be available, assuming the ballot measure passes.

The phasing allows design completion and shovel ready for ECER 2028 for contract C, D, and E.

This includes the portion in the sunset across Golden Gate Park and across the northern end of the Richmond District.

One of the key changes since the 2024 presentation is contract B, shown as the blue color, has had a change in alignment to now run along the Sunset Boulevard Corridor instead of 42nd Avenue.

This has resulted in a scheduled delay for this contract.

However, we think this change is highly beneficial, and Chief Miller will discuss this further in a few slides.

This slide has a similar layout to the piping slide showing the locations and schedules for the three fireboat manifold projects.

Green is Fort Mason, blue is Pier 33 and a half, and orange is Mission Bay Ferry Landing.

Mission Bay Ferry Landing is fully funded and will be in construction soon and will be fully operational by 2029.

Fort Mason is being designed at this time and will be shovel ready for construction using funding from the ESAR 2028 funds.

Pier 33 and a half is paused at this time and will be upgraded with the port's seawall improvement projects.

This graph shows current and future potential funding needs to complete the work that would be funded by the ECER 2028 bonds.

In dark blue is past ECER bonds.

Light blue shows the current committed unspent funding, and this includes 145 million dollars in water bonds.

Gray represents an assumed 200 million dollars from ESER 2028 funding and potential additional water bond funding to match appropriately the potable emergency firefighting water system pipeline construction costs.

We have assumed 200 million from Easter 2028 because this is our best forecasted cost at this time to complete the shovel ready projects, including construction of the pipelines up to 20th Avenue and Clement in the Richmond district.

Planning conversations are in progress to determine all Easter 2028 potential needs between this program and critical fire and police facilities.

The SFPC will commit additional funding in its upcoming 10-year capital plan.

Since 2024, the team has facilitated some important and beneficial changes to the program.

We are updating firewater demands and considering latest housing projections, housing policies, and development projects through 2050.

We have initiated two professional services contracts that provide much more oversight and expertise for our planning and design efforts.

We are continually increasing public engagement opportunities, including on September in September, we will have outreach for the publication of our preliminary mitigated negative declaration for all the projects as a bundle.

And in October, on October 17th, we would love to invite you to a media event that's at pump station number two.

And this is in response to the Los Angeles fires and working closely with the fire department.

We hope to highlight our emergency preparedness and readiness, featuring the emergency firefighting water system and some of our recent facility improvements.

And we are constantly updating and improving access to our project website.

We have increased collaboration between the fire department and the PUC.

We just held our 21st biweekly meeting.

We have held several workshops together, and we recently conducted two field tests specifically to help confirm verify and verify design assumptions for the system components.

We the change pipeline alignment that provides more reliable fire department access and a major fire break along Sunset Boulevard or one of the adjacent avenues 36th or 37th Avenue.

This will help prevent widespread fire conflagration.

And Chief Miller will share a little bit more about the fire break and alignment change, as well as some of the recent full-scale testing work between the fire department and the SFPUC.

Good afternoon, Chair Melgar's supervisors, Garrett Miller, San Francisco Fire Department, assistant deputy chief for ECER projects.

And just briefly to uh tell you that since the last report on this topic, the fire department has been deeply engaged in the planning for the potable emergency firefighting water system and its effects on fire department operations.

This team is carefully considered how the fire department personnel can make the best use of this infrastructure, especially in a post-earthquake conflagration.

After a significant earthquake earthquake, it's predicted that 120 to 160 independent ignitions will occur across the city.

Delayed reporting and limited responses will lead to fire growth and defensive operations.

That leads us to this slide.

Recognizing the topography, the prevailing winds and predicted fire spread in the Sunset District has led the design team to an appreciation of the Sunset Boulevard corridor as a strategic fire break.

The Sunset Boulevard corridor provides a 400-foot separation between structures as compared to the 80-foot separation provided by a typical residential street in the Sunset District.

This understanding has driven the current alignment.

We go on to the next one.

And to use the PEFWS as a backbone for water supply in the outer sunset will require long hose leads above utilizing the above ground hydrant system.

The fire department and the SFPUC conducted a joint exercise in Golden Gate Park where we successfully validated the planned operation by deploying over 3,400 feet of five-inch hose and supplying it from a high pressure EFWS hydrant.

We appreciate this team's focus on the fire department utilization of this significant infrastructure.

And this concludes our remarks.

Happy to answer any questions.

Oh, okay.

Do you want me to chair it?

Okay.

Supervisor Chen.

Thank you, Chairman.

Thank you for the presentation and thank you for the update.

It's I'm actually learning a lot today, but at the same time, I from District 11, I from my constituents, I also have you know here that a lot of similar concern and also uh in some cases, like from our senior constituents that they're very extremely actually extremely concerned about, you know, how do we prepare for our city uh in terms of like climate change and natural disasters that it's actually will take place.

Um and I see the system, but I also would like to really learn a little bit more about the south side, southeast side of our city, which is district 11 is currently resigned.

Um I also uh want to make sure that um we if you can also speak a little bit about you know the steps that you the departments are also taking into as a city and what I some of the possible timeline uh to ensure that all of our outer neighborhood, including my very own district, um, also can benefit from all this investments.

Thank you.

Did you want to address the southwest, southeast side of San Francisco?

I think.

Yes, I I will.

It in the when we did the 2050 planning study in 2021, uh, you will see that there were some uh pipelines, additional pipelines shown in the southern part of San Francisco.

Uh, what I will share is um we have not modeled that, we haven't updated the model, but as we're doing this demand study, we will be looking harder at that area as well, and just seeing what might be required in the future.

Um, one thing that we our models have not done is looked at the contribution from the potable system, the way that it stands, and under the water system improvement program, we spent a billion dollars within the city and county of San Francisco hardening major transmission lines and reservoirs coming into the city.

So a lot of the pipelines in the southern part of San Francisco are seismically reliable now.

So we will have better water supply in the southern part of San Francisco for fire fighting from the potable system, but we haven't modeled it to really put our fingers on exactly what that is, and we do agree that that is something that needs to be looked at.

So, we'll take that into consideration.

Yes, go ahead.

Um, I think that uh thank you.

Thank you so much for uh thank you both so much for your work, and thank you for like that you have been keeping at it.

Um, ultimately, the questions that I have is when it comes to the system itself.

I think we have some of these conversations about alignments and pathway coverage.

Um, could you help us understand just the fundamentally when when you're thinking and designing and building the system collaboratively together?

Um is this when we talk about capacity of the system, are we really in, what are we aiming for?

Are we aiming for like acreage?

Are we in terms of coverage of the system?

Is it how much water that we can actually pump and how much water can go out?

Um and what is deemed sufficient or efficient in terms of a system.

How do we define that?

So I'll start and then maybe Chief Miller can talk about the idea of fire break and the importance of that.

Um we are updating models and we're asking ourselves those very hard questions.

Um, how much is enough?

Obviously, we can't um design for the highest earthquake and put all the fires out.

So there's got to be a level that's affordable and um provides you know pretty pretty good coverage.

Reasonable.

Uh reasonable, exactly.

So I cannot tell you exactly what that is right now.

We're kind of in development figuring it out, but um the idea of the location is that we can reach most homes and provide um, you know, the the nice part about the high pressure is you can spray it very far distances.

So um we're trying to get coverage that we feel is adequate to cover, you know, all properties actually, and um the cisterns are providing some of that coverage right now.

Um, but we can probably get back to you with more specific criteria.

Uh do you want to take a stab at it or should we just leave it?

Okay, I think since we're in development, we've just brought these experts on board and we're revisiting everything that we previously did.

So I'd rather come back to you and give you more information on that at a later time.

Do you think uh how much longer will we uh would it take for us to learn more about the capacity building for the system?

Yeah, maybe uh uh first or second quarter next year.

Wonderful, wonderful.

Thank you.

And uh that's that's actually uh love to I I don't have any more questions.

I think that today, and and frankly, it's to continuous for us to track and understand where things are at.

Um, and would love to have this like continue to the collar chair so that we do come back maybe second quarter of 2026 that when we actually learn more about the system and capacity.

Thank you.

Sure.

Thank you, uh, Supervisor Chan.

I actually do have a couple questions.

Um my first is about costs, because you know, when I first heard about this uh and started talking about this, the cost per mile have gone up significantly.

And I know the costs for infrastructure uh for the PUC as a whole have gone up.

It's not just this, but I'm wondering if you could talk about a a little bit about why.

What what what is behind the vast increase in cost?

So that's question number one.

Question number two is that you know our city is dealing with a lot of issues.

Um our acute housing shortage is one, climate change is another.

And I am wondering, um, you know, at what point do we revisit the map, the projections, the cost estimates, the pass through to the ratepayers, and any possible changes um thereof, um, given that you know things change all the time, you know, and so uh I I understand why change to Sunset Boulevard, that makes sense, uh, and we're upzoning the commercial areas, which are, you know, perpendicular to that.

So I'm wondering what how how you see that in terms of your long-term planning for this project specifically.

Um so to address your first question, the cost was previously based on just a rough estimate of 15 million per mile, and that seemed like it would be enough, but there's no other systems like this in the world, so we were uh it very much underestimating.

Um then uh COVID uh increased uh pricing, steel pricing, you know, inflation, um so uh we've seen construction costs go up all over, as you've already shared and acknowledged.

Um and then when we really started designing the pipelines and realizing how large they are, it's a forty-two-inch diameter pipeline, which is pretty significant, it's three and a half feet, um, and the size of a trench and the depth there are these pipes are about 10 feet deep.

So they go under a lot of the other utilities just to keep them in a you know safe, seismically safe uh location and also to pass under the other utilities.

Um it's just they're very expensive to build.

So once we think there's no other system like this in the world.

Well, we're the only uh city that has two uh independent pipe networks.

Um now the the pipe the one that we're designing and building now is more similar to uh what Japan uses and their pricing is uh is very high also.

Uh but it the idea is that you build a backbone uh th through your community that is are of large pipes that are seismically resilient with very few connections to a network that provides water to all the houses, and that way those connections can be quickly closed off when you're fighting the fires, and then you can slowly as you're repairing the uh broken pipes to the people's houses, you can turn those back on and get them back uh into potable water.

But it's it's different, it's more um seismically resilient, so it's uh got a lot of features that we don't normally put on the potable lines, which just makes it much more expensive.

Okay, thank you.

What about and the second part of the question uh I wanted to share that if you saw the map, the the single pipe that we're gonna be building eight miles up into the Richmond provides a wonderful fire break across the entire length of San Francisco.

Um and this, as uh Chief Miller was sharing, the fires, you know, a lot of the winds come from the west.

So stopping the fires at that at this point, even if we only get a single pipeline built and don't ever come back and loop it, or if we don't get to loop it to for far, far into the future because of funding, the single pipeline will provide a tremendous benefit.

So we feel like we're putting it in the right place that we're gonna get a lot of coverage, and in the future, as funding uh becomes available, we can expand it and we can keep going in more and more into other neighborhoods.

But we want to get the basic uh backbone pipeline all the way up into the Richmond, and we feel like that's a good starting, it's almost like the spine, and then we can uh feed off of that in the future.

Okay, thank you so much.

Uh Ms.

Miller, um, and Mr.

Miller.

Thank you.

Uh let's do it.

You're not related.

So let's uh let's go to public comment on this item now, please.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Land use and transportation will now take public comment on agenda item number six related to the emergency firefighting water system funding and design.

Please come forward to the lecture and if you have public comment for this item.

Hello, everyone.

Uh my name is Albert Chow.

I live on the West Side.

I'm also a small business owner.

And like to say hello to Supervisors Mahood, Melgar, Chen, and Chan.

Thank you for hearing me out today.

I just want to say that we absolutely need the emergency firefighting system on the west side.

Um I question the logic of using potable water.

Because in an emergency and a big conflagration, think of the LA fires.

We're gonna be fighting fires, and at the same time, we're gonna be using potable water that we're gonna be desperately needing for our population if the city really gets shut down and perhaps even isolated.

So I think that you know, another way to use another firefighting water sources necessary.

If you run this water system through this AWSS or excuse me, that's the old version of the name, but um, if you run, let's say water from Lake Merced, which was one of the backup plants, you contaminate those pipes.

So if you had to reintroduce potable water in there, you have to clean those pipes again, and that may take some time and severely damn, you know, vault make our population vulnerable.

Now, I just wonder like the water that's portable comes from Hatchatchi.

It comes 167 miles away, and it runs across three fault lines.

So if this is what we're depending on for fire fighting, then we're in serious trouble because if any of those file lines break and Hetachi's aqueducts get severed and we lose our firefighting system, then we're also in trouble.

So anyway, in conclusion, I really do think we need the system.

I think I think we need uh well thought out, and also I'm probably tired of hearing this thing kicked you know, the can kick down the road so many times.

So please press with all speed.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Let's have the next speaker, please.

Good afternoon, members of the Board of Supervisors Land Use Committee.

My name is Zachary Nathan.

I'm an architect and a member of the Board of Directors of the Planning Association for the Richmond.

After living for 25 years in the Marina District, I moved to the Richmond district where I resided for the past 24 years.

A few months ago, we saw devastating, unimaginable events in Southern California that caught firefighters off guard and resulted in catastrophic loss of life and homes.

Is the Richmond district prepared?

Is the Richmond district prepared for that?

When there is a major earthquake, it is possible that there will be multiple fires throughout the city, as well as high winds.

Sufficient water supply must be available for fighting multiple fires.

I want to focus my remarks on adequate water supply.

As we have seen from recent unprecedented events in Southern California and Lahaina, Hawaii, strong winds can spread fire quickly and overwhelm firefighting systems.

San Francisco proposes a potable water system that uses the Sunset Reservoir in Lake Merced to serve much of the Richmond and Sunset districts.

This system would be separate from the auxiliary water supply system and would have a limited supply of water.

This would impact our supply of drinking water in an emergency.

This solution has been criticized by many former firefighters and deputy chiefs, including Tom Dudier, who has given a presentation to the planning association for the Richmond.

Former SFFD leaders have advised that a salt water pump station at Ocean Beach could supply an unlimited amount of water to the Richmond.

Separate pipes for potable water and firefighting is essential so that seawater can be used for a major fire.

Not having sufficient water to fight a fire for cities that are adjacent to the ocean or bay is inexcusable.

Thank you for sharing your comments.

We have to move on to the next speaker.

Next speaker, please.

Okay.

Thank you.

Eileen Boken, CSFN, speaking on my own behalf.

Following up on my written submission on the emergency firefighting water system, originally known as AWAS, and its chronology and the Sunset Parkside neighborhoods, strong opposition to potable water AWAS.

To put this issue into context, the SFPUC's former general manager, Harlan Kelly, is currently in federal prison.

Since 2010, the PUC has exploited AWAS for its own purposes.

Since 2019, the PUC has attempted to bastardize AWAS, proposing drinking water AWAS for the West Side instead of dedicated AWAS, refer to the overhead.

Last January's land use and transportation committee hearing on AWAS, the PUC's director of water capital programs made a blatant misrepresentation regarding AWAS for Stonestown, as well as major omissions on revisions to AWAS pipe alignments and lack of funding for AWAS in the Richmond.

Since then, the PUC has been the lead over the lead agency for the Management Oversight Committee or MOC for ECER bonds.

The PUC intentionally excluded members of the public from these uh recent meetings, and a public records request stated that there were no relevant documents.

Taking the lead from GAO and being consistent with the mayor Lurie's platform on transparency, accountability, and anti-corruption, I'm struggling urging the committee to subpoena the PUC Director of water Capital Programs to appear at a hearing in 90 days or less to testify under oath on AWAS issues.

No LA like fires in San Francisco.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Do we have any further speakers for agenda item number six?

Madam Chair.

Okay, public comment on this item is now closed.

Uh District One Supervisor uh Cham has requested that we keep this file open to uh check back on progress.

So I make a motion that we continue this item to the call of the chair, please.

On the motion offered by the chair that the hearing be continued to the call of the chair, Vice Chair Chen.

Chen I.

Member Machmood.

Machmood I, Chair Melgar.

Aye.

Melgar, I.

Madam Chair, there are three ayes.

Thank you.

And thank you, Supervisor Chan.

Thank you to the staff.

Do we have any other items on our agenda, Mr.

Clerk?

There is no further business.

We are adjourned.